Venetian Painters

This is the 25th series presented by Alex Shundi. This in itself is a testament to his knowledge and understanding of the arts and historical cultures that influenced them. It is a zoom based lecture series of 6 sessions which are recorded ad available for review. They are held on Monday evenings starting at 7 PM. They are slated to be an hour but often run over a few minutes.  

This is Shundi's Description of this course. 

Venetian Painters ( 25th of the lecture series)

The City of Venice has produced an exceptional number of amazingly important artists in its 1400 years of existence. As a “place” it is unique in the world: a floating dream, with a population that hovered around an average of 80,000. Built on water and swampy islands, owning a specifically invented architecture, it was not connected to terra-firma until the 20th century.

Venice built a navy run on powerful and swift vessels with which she explored, traded, conquered, protected, and acted as a bridge between Byzantium in the East, and Europe. She was instrumental in bringing crusaders to the middle-east, in spreading culture and exchanging goods throughout the known world.

Her navy was successful in stopping the conquering of Europe of the Ottoman empire. Goods, ideas, inventions and attitudes were married in Venice, and spread throughout the world, from Marco Polo to Casanova, from Tiepolo to Canova. The arts were the biggest influence. Glass, optics, hydraulics, tapestry, ship-building, pigments and spices, and so much more were Venetian specialties.

The artists and craftsmen that it produced were reflections of all this, and were of a caliber that showed its diversity and uniqueness.

They served as inspiration throughout the Renaissance, before and after, they connected esthetics between the low-countries and the entire Mediterranean, East and West, accepting all religions and diversities of philosophies into its urban fold.

We will cover the most outstanding of these masters, formally analyze their operas, and presenting the soul of their esthetics, always connecting their art to the beauty and magic of their city.