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Matthew introduces Titian's 'painterly' style, with 'its melting touch and suave effect', which he invented at the beginning of the 16th century. For the next 70 years in his studio in Venice, surrounded by poets and dukes and art historians, the occasional foreign king, and his female models - who mostly came from brothels - Titian developed this look. After his death his hazy, merging colours and rich, broken surfaces remained a touchstone of greatness in painting for 400 years.
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