PAOLO VENEZIANO A Venetian painter, as his name suggests, his work is placed as a mediator between the oriental, Byzantine conception of Venetian painting in those times, and the modern western one that Giotto’s school was spreading. In his younger period, Paolo shows to have grasped some new elements of the innovations of Giotto, such as the attention to the relationship between space and figure. In his period of maturity, Paolo frees himself of any citation akin to Giotto and, on the contrary, recovers the plainest Byzantine tradition. The linear element prevails, closing the figure in clear contours, so reducing the composition to two-dimensionality. His later works are distinguished both for their preciousness and richness of colour as for the attention to the line, sinuous and fluid. In this, he certainly feels the effects of elegant Gothic decoration.