Overview

The first biography since 1877 of Venice's greatest artist - a towering work which captures the genius of Titian, beautifully illustrated throughout with full colour plates. Devoted father and loyal friend, Titian was notorious for disregarding authority and was an international celebrity by his late fifties. He was famously difficult but his stubbornness and horrendous timekeeping did nothing to deter his patrons who included the Hapsburgs, the Pope and his family and Charles V. During his career, which spanned more than seventy years, Titian painted around five or six hundred pictures of which less than half survive. His work has been studied by generations of great artists from Rubens to Manet and he is often seen as having artistically transcended his own time. Sheila Hale not only examines his life, both personal and professional, but how his art affected his contemporaries and how it influences artists today. She also examines Venice in its context of a city at the time of the Renaissance, overshadowed artistically by Rome and Florence and growing into the famous historical city it has become. Fully illustrated with four colour plate sections (including his famous works 'Reclining Venus', 'Death of Actaeon' and 'Three Ages of Man'), this is an astonishing portrait of one of the most important figures in the history of Western art and a vivid evocation of Venice in its 'Golden Age'.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sheila Hale
Publisher:   HarperCollins Publishers
Imprint:   HarperPress
Weight:   1.320kg
ISBN:  

9780007175826

ISBN 10:   0007175825
Pages:   864
Publication Date:   05 July 2012
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Reviews

From the reviews of VENICE: We only used one guide book, Sheila Hale's VENICE, for which she deserves a Nobel Prize , Eric Newby, MAIL ON SUNDAY by its power-to-weight ratio, the best guide book I have ever used David Lodge THE MAN WHO LOST HIS LANGUAGE 'An extraordinary and touching achievement' Sir Jonathan Miller When Sheila Hale's husband John suffered a stroke that left him unable to walk, write or speak normally, she embarked on a battle to restore him to normal life. This book shows how she followed every medical trail... and at the same time maintained an extraordinary loving intimacy with him. She tells their joint story with rare intelligence and feeling Claire Tomalin An extraordinary achievement: a moving account of an intimate relationship, and a rigorous investigation into the most up-to-date medical theories and treatments of a mysterious affliction. It raises all kinds of questions about language, communication and the brain. Most remarkable, it's full of jokes and surprises Anthony Sampson

From the reviews of Venice: We only used one guide book, Sheila Hale's Venice, for which she deserves a Nobel Prize , Eric Newby, Mail on Sunday by its power-to-weight ratio, the best guide book I have ever used David Lodge The Man Who Lost His Language 'An extraordinary and touching achievement' Sir Jonathan Miller When Sheila Hale's husband John suffered a stroke that left him unable to walk, write or speak normally, she embarked on a battle to restore him to normal life. This book shows how she followed every medical trail! and at the same time maintained an extraordinary loving intimacy with him. She tells their joint story with rare intelligence and feeling Claire Tomalin An extraordinary achievement: a moving account of an intimate relationship, and a rigorous investigation into the most up-to-date medical theories and treatments of a mysterious affliction. It raises all kinds of questions about language, communication and the brain. Most remarkable, it's full of jokes and surprises Anthony Sampson 'A triumph' Michael Frayn 'Sheila Hale's book enlarges the language of love' Brenda Maddox 'The Man Who Lost His Language belongs ont he same shelf as Jean-Dominique Bauby describing the stroke that left him paralysed except for one eyelid, Robert McCrum on the one from which he recovered, and John Bayley's account of Iris Murdoch's dementia. But it outstrips them all.' Jonathan Ree, Independent

Crammed with new or expanded or re-thought information about this stubbornly mysterious giant. Impressive...She shines a light on the mysterious conflict of energies that makes his genius so difficult to encapsulate. Hale is also an enthusiastic collector of characters and her descriptions of the band of Renaissance crackpots who constituted Titian's employers result in some of the book's most entertaining stretches Sunday Times Evokes the sensuality of Titian's working methods and provides subtle insights into his enigmatic last paintings... a scrupulous and exhaustive account that is informed by the latest scholarship, but admirably free of academic cant... her book provides by far the richest account yet of Titian's interactions with the city's labyrinthine social fabric Daily Telegraph Magnificent...the elegance and energy of her narrative...a born biographer's eye for detail. This is the first serious attempt for 100 years at encompassing Titian's life. Its combination of the eminently readable and the profoundly authentic is remarkable Literary Review THE MAN WHO LOST HIS LANGUAGE 'An extraordinary and touching achievement' Sir Jonathan Miller When Sheila Hale's husband John suffered a stroke that left him unable to walk, write or speak normally, she embarked on a battle to restore him to normal life. This book shows how she followed every medical trail... and at the same time maintained an extraordinary loving intimacy with him. She tells their joint story with rare intelligence and feeling Claire Tomalin An extraordinary achievement: a moving account of an intimate relationship, and a rigorous investigation into the most up-to-date medical theories and treatments of a mysterious affliction. It raises all kinds of questions about language, communication and the brain. Most remarkable, it's full of jokes and surprises Anthony Sampson

From the reviews of Venice: We only used one guide book, Sheila Hale's Venice, for which she deserves a Nobel Prize , Eric Newby, Mail on Sunday by its power-to-weight ratio, the best guide book I have ever used David Lodge The Man Who Lost His Language 'An extraordinary and touching achievement' Sir Jonathan Miller When Sheila Hale's husband John suffered a stroke that left him unable to walk, write or speak normally, she embarked on a battle to restore him to normal life. This book shows how she followed every medical trail! and at the same time maintained an extraordinary loving intimacy with him. She tells their joint story with rare intelligence and feeling Claire Tomalin An extraordinary achievement: a moving account of an intimate relationship, and a rigorous investigation into the most up-to-date medical theories and treatments of a mysterious affliction. It raises all kinds of questions about language, communication and the brain. Most remarkable, it's full of jokes and surprises Anthony Sampson

Author Information

Sheila Hale is the author of many books including a guidebook to Venice which prompted Eric Newby to declare she 'deserves a Nobel Prize' and by David Lodge as 'the best guidebook I have ever used'. VENICE went into four editions and was translated into seven languages. She has written an architectural history of Verona and has written extensively about Venice and the Veneto for a number of magazines and articles, including the New York Times. She is the widow of the late, great John Hale with whom she worked on RENAISSANCE VENICE and the classic THE CIVILISATION OF EUROPE IN THE RENAISSANCE. She is a trustee of Venice in Peril and her last book, THE MAN WHO LOST HIS LANGUAGE was one of the most widely reviewed and highly praised books of 2002. She lives in London.

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