Art: After Titian, Venice Observed

A new show in London is full of 17th century surprises

Some moments in art history used to seem beyond resuscitation. Seventeenth century Venetian painting was one of them. Nobody bothered about it. It was an orphan, huddled between the father figures of the Venetian cinquecento—Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto—and the effervescent grandeur of the Tiepolos in the 18th century. Even today, when scholarship and the art market have opened every mass grave in search of something to write about and sell, the names of painters like Damiano Mazza or Alessandro Turchi do not make the...