Titian art lesson

I don’t know why, but for some reason, I find the name Titian fun to say. Maybe because it almost seems like you’re saying a bad word? But, Titian is an interesting Renaissance artist, and we studied him as part of both a history lesson on the Renaissance and (this was a bit of Serendipity) part of our geography lesson for our Italy unit study and our giant over-arching artist studies.

(there are affiliate links in here)

Let’s start this Titian art lesson by learning a little bit about him

Last year when we studied the Renaissance, I put together a Renaissance playlist. I had two videos related to Titian on it, and here are the notes I taught from for Titian:

(Titian starts around 10:16)

Titian was known for his portraits and landscapes. His art was associated with bold, bright colors, and was generally fairly popular. He was known for working with the Pope (who didn’t at that time?), King Philip II of Spain (every time I think about him I think of Bill and how he was this not-so-great Machiavelli figure), and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (better known for being at the center of the early Protestant craziness)

Where I found my materials for my Titian lecture:

• National Gallery
• Titian biography
• Titian art story
•  

When we studied Italy as part of our Italy unit study, we also read this Titian book, if you can find any books from this series in used bookstores, buy them. They are AMAZING. Just the right amount of information.

Our Titian art lesson

Since this was part of our Renaissance artists unit, and we’d been drawing a lot of portraits and other artwork, I decided this time we were going to focus on the landscapes. One of Titian’s particular skills was in his landscapes. While most of his famous artwork are Biblical or mythological, he was known at the time for his landscapes as well.

So, I grabbed some copy paper, our stash of paintbrushes, and lots of acrylic paint (I apparently bought this exact set on May 15, 2017, and I need to repurchase it). 

I’ve found for my non-art excited boys, having them make a miniature art lesson, it works os much better if we make miniature art.

When they were younger we often did this on index cards, but for making art mini-books, copy paper works better so we can easily staple it into a book. If you’re a subscriber (join my newsletter) my Italian notebooking pages has a mini book for all of the Italian Renaissance artists.

So we sat there and painted, and talked about the hilarious crazy hijinks Renaissance artists got up to. And generally created some fun artwork. We tried to imitate different brush strokes, with different results, and all in all a good time was had by all.

I rather liked our Titian art lesson the best out of all of our Renaissance art lessons because it was so low key.

More fun history or art lessons

• Election lapbook
• Modern History lessons
• Pandemic and Pop Culture
• Middle Ages
• Lascaux Cave Paintings