Titian Methodology (Late Style)

1. Titian began with a course linen canvas sometimes sewn together for large paintings.

2.He would size the linen with a thin application of rabbit skin glue, scrubbed into the weave rather than laid on like a solid layer, 14 parts water to 1 part glue granules.

3.Then a ground is applied with the same glue mixture as above, combined with an equal measure of marble dust, gypsum or chalk dust. A 20% addition of linseed oil is added and stirred in vigorously. (One may add a fresh egg yolk to help the mixture.) This mixture is brushed on in very few coats, maybe three maximum. Once dry this ground may be given a thin rubbing with linseed oil to seal the surface.

4.Titian began painting directly onto the canvas with a dead color palette of terra verte, iron oxides, mars reds and carbon blacks liberally intermixed with lead white. All edges were soft and variant at this imprimatura stage. This application is mostly opaque, dark, and tonal with vague indications of coloration of objects.

5. Glazes, scumbling, and velatura are applied with higher chroma colors (vermilion,red lakes,azurite,lapis lazuli, lead tin yellow, etc.) plus lead white. In this stage color is no longer mixed mechanically (pre-mix on the palette) but mostly optically (layer unmixed colors on the canvas) in order to build up layers and maintain the purity of the color.

Glazing serves to darken and unify shadow areas while velatura (glazing with white plus a color) is used to model the light mass and light zones. Scumbling, in this instance is meant to describe the drier brushing over the canvas that gives the light mass its greatest altitude off the surface of the painting.