Forum Network

Frederick Ilchman discusses the largest exhibition of Italian Renaissance paintings in Boston in 50 years, which offers an ideal opportunity to bring to life the heated debates on art and the creative rivalry of the greatest Venetian painters of the 16th century: Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese.

The exhibition's format, pointed juxtapositions of similar subject matter by the three artists, is different from a typical museum exhibition, which either focuses on a single artist, or instead covers an entire period or movement and encompasses dozens of creative personalities. Through the masterpieces brought together, each artist will emerge as a distinct individual. Contemporary texts (letters, dialogues, biographies) as well as other paintings far too large to bring to Boston recreate what these artists thought about the art of painting, and each other. The exhibition "Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice" runs from March 15-August 16, 2009 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and then will travel to the Musee du Louvre for the fall of 2009.