Excerpts from the book “La Serenissima”

At the occasion of the 450th anniversary of Titian’s and the 100th anniversary of Claude Monet’s death, this book is dedicated to the theme of “Beauty and Transience”. The contributions other Venice-loving artists with important anniversaries in 2026 have made to modernity (Turner, Vivaldi, and Richard Wagner) is also honored in its pages. While Venice has never been destroyed, it nevertheless embodies the continuity of transience. William Turner and Claude Monet loved visiting the city to depict its melancholy beauty. Monet’s last trip before dedicating himself to his almost abstract late water lily works, had also taken him to Venice. The revolution of landscape in art, however, first occurred during the Renaissance.

Taking up these ideas, 48 artists from 24 countries have come together to emulate them with contemporary diversity. The editor of this book has divided the artworks from around the world into chapters and added selected poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quotes, aesthetic statements, and illustrations. The result is a multifaceted homage from the animated perspective of modern artists.

An Homage to Titian and Claude Monet

The text and the poems in this post are excerpts from the book “La Serenissima”. Please click on the cover image to browse through the book!

Youtube playlists: Titian, Vivaldi, Richard Wagner in Venice – Claude Monet – William Turner – Inspiration Venice (Click at the red links!) Our Venice video!

Titian is the most prominent representative of Venetian painting during the golden era of the Republic of Venice – at once the city’s heyday and its time of economic decline. Born from the shimmering spheres of the sea, the sparkling air of luxury, and the golden gleam of byzantine mosaics, Venetian painting (as opposed to Florentine art) is all about basking in color and light. As a global trading nation, Venice imported the finest pigments from overseas. Apart from statesmen, Titian also painted a large portrait of his color vendor. The psychological depth of his character portraits modernized the world of painting. Another one of his models was his author friend Pietro Aretino, who belonged to a group of artists that regularly met for bacchanalian bashes on the master’s private premises, and brought about the flourishing of sensualist painting. The idea of a terrestrial paradise also dates back from the medieval Gardens of Love. Back then, the two most famous paintings of the love goddess were created: Giorgione’s “Sleeping Venus” (Which Titian may have had a part in) and Titian’s “Venus of Urbino”. Scholars debate whether it actually depicts a goddess. The son of the Duke of Urbino who commissioned the painting simply called her „a naked woman“. The painting may have been a wedding gift to stimulate his young wife. Both works had a lasting impact on modern art, as Eduard Manet’s Olympia painting clearly shows. The loose application of paint in Titian’s late work reveals first parallels to Impressionism—a style that Claude Monet was able to develop in a groundbreaking way in Venice

The Impact of Venice on Modern Art

The intensification of color and light, the influence of water and iridescent hues, and the blurring of transitions in Titian’s paintings raise the fundamental question of Venice’s influence on modern painting. Since 1550, colorism reached the peak of perfection in his œvre, significantly influencing future generations of artists. At fifty, Titian was at the height of his artistic ability. His red is said to shimmer even in the auburn hair of his courtesan models. Long before this time, Petrarca had decried Venice’s moral decline, retreating to Padua and Arqua in the pastural loneliness of the Venetian villegiatura. Ever since its conquest, the Venetian scenery had exerted an influence on local art, virtually taking part in the design of window views and backgrounds.

With 170 islands, 450 bridges, and 170 canals, Venice itself is the seductive optical illusion of an oriental city. Its dramatic combinations of marble and gold, and its perfect ratio between vertical and horizontal lines could be a painter’s composition. Even the rift between traditional and modern elements seems to enhance its beauty. In 1840, Goethe’s color theory was translated into English by a close friend of Turner’s. For Turner, the colors had induced a creative boost leading to new chromatic and stylistic approaches. Plunged in immersive atmospheric light, Venice had a strong impact on the use of motion blur in his paintings. The mirroring sheen of the water became a source of lightful color. It was no longer a matter of topography accurate in the manner of a *veduta*. Instead, the aim was to create a mother-of-pearl-like shimmer in the atmosphere in which everything solid dissolved into water and color poetically capturing the moment. During his three stays in Venice, Turner painted around 500 sheets. Upon his return to the studio, he turned them into emotionally rich paintings. On his trips, he had ventured ever farther out into the lagoon.

Monet learned about Turner’s work from his later art dealer in London. After his trip to Venice, he gave an even more meditative dimension to his water lilies, almost establishing a type of abstract painting, in which the sky appears merely as a reflection. Claude Debussy’s “Reflets dans l’eau“ were inspired by Monet’s cathedral series, capturing fleeting effects in it just like Monet had integrated time of day and weather for additional depth. Venice offered both. After Monet had always refused going there, in the fall of 1908 he finally followed the invitation of an American art patroness. Nothing seemed more attractive to him than sitting on a hotel balcony or a gondola and painting one and the same motif (including the palazzi along the Grand Canal, San Giorgio Maggiore, and the Doge’s Palace) at different times of day in a kind of reduced architecture, and ending up with five to six paintings every time.

With its underlying chords of light and color, “La Serenissima” resembles one of Vivaldi’s carefully composed concerts – the water, the colors, and the light make everything dance. In the city of music publishers, Vivaldi wrote around 500 concerts, about half of them for solo violin. His most famous work of program music, “The Four Seasons” was written during the Late Baroque in 1725. The “Winter” (fourth movement) embodies a highly picturesque way of turning the beauty of impermanence into music. The first notes depict slowly falling snowflakes being stirred up by the wind, the fast trilling of the violin the clutter of teeth in the cold and icy wind. The lively warmth by the fire shows an Impressionist touch. Vivaldi’s standardization of the three-movement form within the movements was groundbreaking. Johann Sebastian Bach greatly admired him. In 1741, Vivaldi died impoverished in Vienna.

The sensual blending of different levels made oil painting in Venice like music- making with liquid matter. As a central site of activity, “La Serenissima” is also connected with Verdi, who had introduced the lyrical Opera to Venice. Especially “La Traviata” is inseparably tied to the lagoon city. In his novel about Verdi, Franz Werfel recounts the composer’s work in connection with Richard Wagner. Wagner, too, came to Venice to set new standards in classical music. Inspired by Titian’s “Assumption of the Virgin”, he took up the concept for his “Mastersingers” once again. With its impressive dimensions (24 square meters), the painting reflects the grandeur of Wagner’s operas. Today, it can once again be found in the Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Wagner spent months on end in Venice to complete the second movement of “Tristan and Isolde” and the libretto. The songs of the gondoliers inspired him to compose the melancholy tune of the shepherds. Time and again, art influenced by Venice emanates a shimmering and flowing type of movement. With Venice as the backdrop of his stage, Wagner wrote in his letters: “One day you will hear a dream…”

The fact that „La Serenissima“ was never destroyed may in part be due to the unshakable beauty of this vibrant tale from the Arabian Nights. The unspeakably gorgeous Queen of the Sea, appearing at once palpable and elusive, is not only reflected in the late work of Titian, Turner, and Monet, but also in the writing of Johann Wolfgang Goethe. During his second trip to Venice, Goethe’s “Venetian Diagrams” reveal a novel style marked by the inexpressible and resisting the direct identification of form and object. This surprisingly modernist style was later taken up by poets like Rainer Maria Rilke, Baudelaire, and Stephan Malarme, giving the tonal music of their wordplay a special significance – poetry, too, is sound. Just like Petrarca, Goethe pointed out the moral decline of the former trading metropolis. Under the influence of this tonal fascination, “La Serenissima” also turns into music. Being a dream of a city, Venice needs no marketing, and the only forces by which it will be governed are beauty, atmosphere and impermanence, the tide, the sun-filled colors, the reflections, and the moon.

”Venetian Epigrams“

by Johann Wolfgang Goethe

VIII. 8

This gondola, it reminds me of the cradle’s gentle rocking,
And the case it carries of a spacious coffin.
That’s right! It is between the cradle and the coffin that we drift and sway
Across the great canal, so carelessly through life.

CLXXXI. 181

Masts upon masts crowding the city’s waters,
The boatsman calmly drying sails upon its shores.
Here, noble Venice, you present your castles.

Translated by Anna Sanner

A Tour of ”La Serenissima” retracing the steps of Tizian, Antonio Vivaldi, and Richard Wagner

Following the motifs of their paintings, it is easy to retrace Monet’s and Turner’s steps through Venice. To prepare for it accordingly, it is recommended to do some reading.

Titian:

Titian’s paintings are everywhere in Venice, especially at the Gallerie dell‘ Accademia, which also houses his final, unfinished work, the “Pietà”. It clearly shows that in old age, he painted using his fingers and a spatula, making his painting style easier to feel than analyze. (https://www.gallerieaccademia.it/)

Titian and Giorgione had also collaborated on the murals of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the Warehouse of the Germans by the Rialto Bridge in Venice. The sensuality of this ephemeral art is best experienced by looking at its remains at the Gallerie dell‘ Accademia and the Casa d‘Oro. (https://www.cadoro.org/il-museo/le-raccolte/)

The Doge’s Palace is another great spot to treasure-hunt for Titian’s work (Scarlet Hall, Grimani Hall, Philosopher’s Hall). The mural of St. Christopher is one of his few remaining murals.

Titian’s former residence has become a symbol of impermanence rather than a tourist destination. The privately inhabited house stands in a crammed cul-de-sac, and over the centuries, the one-time view of Murano and the Alps from its former paradise garden has been lost. Titian’s heirs had run the premises into the ground, and they had been plundered.

As you follow Titian’s trail through Venice, you can also admire architectural church rooms and enjoy art in a contemplative manner: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_churches_in_Venice).

Most of Titian’s paintings are on display at the sacristy of the Basilica of St. Mary of Health known simply as “The Salute” to whose interior he contributed several scenes. Monet, as well as Turner chose the grandiose church at the entrance to the Grand Canal as a motif (https://basilicasalutevenezia.it/orari-e-visite-turistiche/)

Titian’s „Assunta“ watches over his tomb at the Frari, which is also home to his “Pessaro Madonna”. (https://www.basilicadeifrari.it/)

Titian’s most spectacular altarpiece is his “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence” painted for the Jesuits’ church Santa Maria Assunta in Cannaregio. More of Titian’s works can be found at the churches St. Salvador with its gorgeous cloister, and San Giovanni Elemosinario.

Antonio Vivaldi:

Vivaldi is another artist whose presence lingers at several churches in Venice:

The Chiesa San Giovanni in Bragora where he was baptized sports a memorial plate for the composer. (https://sangiovannibattistabragora.it/)

Being the son of a St. Mark’s Basilica violinist, he felt at home inside the gorgeous golden church. His father taught him to play the violin early on and had him step in for him to perform there on his violin together with the orchestra. The byzantine design may even have inspired his joy in colorful orchestral compositions and resulted in the musical term “coloratura”.

Vivaldi concerts take place daily at the Church of the Pietà in San Marco, also known as the Church of Santa Maria della Vistazione, closely associated with Vivaldi. In the building preceding today’s structure, Vivaldi conducted an orchestra of orphaned girls from 1703 to 1716. Today, visitors can explore the presbytery where he used to work. (https://www.pietavenezia.org/home and https://www.vivaldichurchvenice.com also https://www.interpretiveneziani.com/)

At the church of St. Maurice located at the square of the same name, a museum shows musical instruments from Vivaldi’s time. (https://www.museodellamusica.com/)

Richard Wagner:

Richard Wagner lived like a king at the Palazzo Guistinian for several months during his first trip to Venice in 1858/59. At the same time, being an emigrant in Venice, he also found himself persecuted there. Later, the city of the lagoon he had visited six times celebrated his operas with great enthusiasm.

In 1883, he died in his wife Cosima’s arms at Ca’ Vendramin Callergi on the Grand Canal. He was buried in Bayreuth. The apartment he inhabited during the final years of his life now serves as a museum. (https://www.casinovenezia.it/it/museo-wagner)

At the Caffè Lavena on the north side of St. Mark’s Square where Wagner was a regular, visitors can still enjoy their coffee at the exact same tables the composer used to sit on. (https://www.caffelavena.it/)

Veneto landscape

The shimmering gold
Of the sea reflected in
Il Canzoniere.

Villages nestled
Into all that silence of
The sun flooded hills.

Pilgrimage into
Loneliness. Villa Ermo
In Moncenigo.

Overlooking roofs
And hills crown glass revealing
Column capital.

Haiku poems by Gabriele Walter (translated by Anna Sanner)

Sources: Please see the authors, poet and bibliography in the above link to the online book (imprint at the end of the book)!