Puncturing the myth of Vittore Carpaccio’s waning powers

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Roderick Conway Morris

“The Crucifixion and Apotheosis of the 10,000 Martyrs of Mount Ararat” (1515) illustrates the legend of the massacre of Roman legionnaires who had converted to Christianity. It incorporates references to the then-perennial threat of attack on Venice by the Holy Roman Emperor and the Ottomans. Credit Accademia Gallery, Venice

ITALY---Vittore Carpaccio was one of Venice’s leading narrative painters of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, whose richly detailed canvases relating the lives of saints once adorned the city’s “scuole,” or lay confraternities’ meeting places. Some modern art historians have argued that Carpaccio himself also suffered a crisis of confidence at this time. The appearance on the scene of younger artists, notably Giorgione, Titian, Sebastiano del Piombo and Lorenzo Lotto, made Carpaccio’s colorful, anecdotal style seem outdated, and the general standard of his work deteriorated. [link]