Venetian Canvas and the Transformation of Painting

Cleo Nisse

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9780691271675
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691288888
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

A richly illustrated investigation of how the adoption of canvas revolutionized Venetian Renaissance painting, from the Bellini and Titian to Veronese and Tintoretto

Between the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, European painting underwent a profound transformation as artists increasingly painted on canvas instead of wood or walls. Nowhere was more important to this shift than Venice, where painters experimented with canvas with remarkable creativity and innovation. In Venetian Canvas and the Transformation of Painting, Cleo Nisse investigates why Venetian artists adopted canvas and how it revolutionized their art between 1400 and 1600.

Intertwining approaches from art history and art conservation, and featuring stunning new photographs that show details as never before, the book presents groundbreaking research based on close study of Venetian artworks, archival sources, art-making treatises, and early modern art criticism. It sheds new light on the materiality of early modern canvas, its production and supply, and the influence of climate on its use. The book offers fresh interpretations of iconic works and important concepts such as pittura di macchia and non finito, and demonstrates how canvas contributed to the radical new style of painters such as Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. But above all else, it shows how canvas changed the making and meaning of paintings.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Blank Canvas: Naming, Making, and Trading
• 2. Prelude: Practices of Canvas Painting Pre-1475
• 3. Canvas City: Cycles and Altarpieces 1474–1538
• 4. Fabric and Facture: Canvas in the Pittura di Macchia
• 5. Stretching the Limits
• Conclusion: Altar Cloths and Arachne’s Web
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Photo Credits