Carpaccio Created the Graphic Novels of the Renaissance

The paintings of Vittore Carpaccio were the graphic novels of the Italian Renaissance. The Venetian, who was born in the 1460s and died in 1525 or 1526, created polyptychs—large-scale oils divided over several panels—to tell stories from the Bible, the lives of the saints and Greco-Roman mythology. “They’re a bit like strip cartoons,” notes Peter Humfrey, curator of a new exhibition of more than 90 paintings and drawings on view through February at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Largely because of the logistical complexity of transporting 500-year-old paintings, some of them more than 11 feet across, this is Carpaccio’s first retrospective ever held outside Italy. But while he may be less well-known today than contemporaries like Michelangelo and Raphael, Carpaccio stands out as a compelling storyteller with a talent for vivid details—a rich woman’s look of abject ennui, the gory remains of a dragon’s lunch, the expressive ears of Mary’s long-suffering donkey. “He’s a very accessible artist, with a flair for the fabulous,” Humfrey says, “and he had something rather rare among Italian Renaissance artists: a great sense of humor.”

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Amy Crawford is a Michigan-based freelance journalist writing about cities, science, the environment, art and education. A longtime Smithsonian contributor, her work also appears in CityLab and the Boston Globe.