The Eyes That Look

Author/Guide: Julia Grigg

Why a Booktrail?

1580s: We may have eyes that look – but how clearly do we see?

ISBN: 978-1911604617
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Language/culture, Nature/Landscape

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What you need to know before your trail

Francesco Bassano wants to find out how and why an extraordinary painting was made; the story traces his quest to discover the secrets of the portrait’s past.

Encountering the High Renaissance’s masters Titian, Veronese and Vasari in the very act of creating and recording the era’s stupendous art and architecture, he is witness to astonishing achievements. Enthralled, he learns of the determination needed for innovation and the sacrifices demanded of an artist if cherished ambition is to become reality. Little by little he unravels what lies behind the painting, gaining new understanding of love, truth and beauty, and of loyalty, devotion and the unbreakable bond between a master and his dogs. However, in delving deeper, the past’s dark side reveals itself: cruelty, inhumanity and human frailty – and Francesco cannot avoid the experience of bitter betrayal.

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Travel Guide

Travel BookTrail style to the world of Italian Bassano paintings

The story of the Bassano dogs paintings is to journey into the heart of the Italian Renaissance period and the art world of that time. ARtists Bassaon and Vaseri are featured heavily as is the painter Titian. We see the various locations through their eyes and it’s a fascinating picture.

Bassano

In Renaissance Italy dogs were symbols of loyalty. They were considered loyal and true, and were a sign of high social status. People were becoming rich and building large house on the banks of the river in Venice. They had large grounds and many also had dogs.

Bassano was the eminent painter of dogs in Venice at that time.

Visit The Art of Venice

Venice jumps from the page in a sea of colour and brightness. This is the city covered and consumed by art and rich Palladian mansions. The new rich are building houses and many considered dogs to be a status symbol so they became popular. The city comes alive with its mentions of art, artistic flourishes to buildings, the bridges, the cobbled streets, art galleries and so much more.

Visit Vaseri’s Florence

Vaseri is the other painter mentioned in this story of rivalry and the art world.

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian painter, architect, writer, and historian. He studied the works of Raphael and other artists of the Roman High Renaissance. His own paintings were of the Mannerist variety

Many of his pictures still exist, the most important being the wall and ceiling paintings in the Sala di Cosimo I in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence

In Florence, Vasari also built the long passage, now called Vasari Corridor, which connects the Uffizi with the Palazzo Pitti on the other side of the river.