Discovering Venice with alequandro! #12 - Visit to the largest church in Venice and the masterpiece of the painter Tiziano Vecellio

Hello friends!
As promised I will tell you the continuation of my visit to the Frari church in the beautiful city of Venice.

After contemplating the funeral monument of the sculptor Antonio Canova, I continued my visit through a wide passage surmounted by a beautiful round arch.
I entered the church choir and was amazed...
In front of me, at about thirty meters the apse with the main altar illuminated by the large mullioned windows.

I turn 180 degrees to understand the incredible space where I am.
They are in a semicircular space, precisely the choir where on two levels there are the inscredible wooden chairs all inlaid and decorated with gold.

The effect is really elegant and at the same time find me at the center of those 124 raised positions, it puts me a little 'in awe.
The choir is 13.70 meters wide and 16 meters long.

There are not many visitors but a couple of tourists intent on observing the statues placed above the trabeation force me to move sideways to observe the impressive and magnificent oil painting on board of the Assumption, a grandiose work by Tiziano Vecellio that he realized between 1516 -1518.
When it was presented, the work left everyone amazed by the pictorial innovation that he had shown with this masterpiece.
When he realized it, Tiziano was just over 30 years old, and he had the courage to get out of the schemes used until then to represent religious sacred symbols.
Usually the figures were represented following very specific rules.
Titian gives dynamism to the work by creating a scene whose subjects are not static but are all moving in relation to each other.
Maria had never been represented during the ascension and Titian decides to structure the picture developing it on 3 levels: the apostles below, Maria and above the divine apparition.
The work can be schematized in a pyramidal shape where the apostles are the base and God is the point.
The dimensions of the work are 690 × 360 cm.

I will definitely return to visit this church, it is full of incredible and unique works.
I decide to continue and I am attracted by an altar placed in a side aisle of the church.
This is another work by Titian. He did it after the Assumption.
This painting, the Madonna of Ca Pesaro is another masterpiece that further breaks the patterns with the past.
Until then, the Madonna was always represented at the center of the scene.
In this work Titian places the Madonna on the right, but her figure is strengthened by the presence of the column placed behind her.

Also here the geometric pyramid formed by the elements is evident and the main figure of the Virgin stands out on the others.
Colors and light are distinctive features of Tiziano's works that make the scene alive by involving the observer to admire the composition.

As I look at the painting, I realize only later that I am observed...
It's a strange feeling ...
When I look at a painting it's like looking at the past through a magic window and I usually watch as a spectator... I see the characters but they do not see me...

But in this work I was stunned!
There is that child, Leonardo who looks at me and somehow involves me in the work making me participate!
Unbelievable!

Leonardo is in stark contrast to the other characters who are all captured by that situation.
He is the bridge between the scene invented by Titian and the present of the observer.

I hope you enjoyed the post.
The visit to the Basilica dei Frari ends here but the journey to discover Venice continues, stay connected!!

See you soon!