The Rape of Europa, 1559-1562, (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston)

Rape of Europa, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

The sixth and last of the Poesie for Philip II was sent to Spain in April 1562.  The story as detailed in Ovid’s Metamorphosis involves Jupiter’s (king of Crete) transformation into a white bull to abduct the princess, Europa, and make her his bride.  In the right foreground, the bull is seen swimming out to sea with the terrified Europa on his back, while in the left background her companions watch helplessly from the shore.

In composing his Rape of Europa, Titian chose to portray neither the seduction on the shore, which Ovid lingered over, nor the more significant events that happened in Crete, but the chaotic voyage between two events.   Two cupids soar across the sky, another moves through the water on a dolphin while the bull with Europa moves across the sea against a backdrop of fiery colors.  The canvas establishes an exuberant movement in a horizontal flow across the picture plane through the power of the bull’s body movement upward beyond the space of the canvas, Europa’s fluttering drapery, the swimming sea creatures and the flying cupids in charge of love. In no other work was Titian so willing to sacrifice his heroine’s grace and loveliness for the sake of expression into a powerful vision of passion and sensation. 

The white shift of Europa and her pale flesh tones are managed with greatest subtlety against the white bull.  The iridescent lights of the sea are truly dazzling as from foreground to the distant mountains it slowly merges with the haze of the horizon.  The crags and rocky slopes, glimpsed through veiled lights and opalescent colors, are created by the magical effects of the brush and conjure up an illusion of space and atmosphere that knows no precedent and understandably, afterward, stimulated masters of landscape.

Dirce, Toro Farnese, Rome

The only significant difference between Ovid’s text of Europa and Titian’s is the reversal of directions, for the painter has Europa holding her drapery in her right hand and the bull’s horn (rather than his mane) in her left.   In addition to the well-known passage in Ovid, it has been recently been shown that Titian must have read Achilles Tatius, whose poem was translated into Italian by his friend, Lodovico Dolce.  This literary source mentions the mountainous distance where the tiny figures of Europa’s companions watch with astonishment along with the joyful dolphins in the foreground and the distressed and trailing cupids in the air.  Furthermore, it has been convincingly suggested that Titian derived Europa’s awkward pose from the Dirce in the Toro Farnese group, which Titian discovered while visiting Rome in 1546.

Originally, Titian wrote to Philip II in placing the Perseus and Andromeda with another picture, the Jason and Medea and the Rape of Europa with the Death of Actaeon. Whether the pendants were lost or never executed, the pendant, Perseus and Andromeda compositional compliments the sea landscape in Rape of Europa.

Works Cited

Allegory of Prudence, 1565-1575, National Gallery, London

Cagli, Corrado, Art .Classics, Titian. Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. New York, NY. 2006. Print. Pages: 7-33, 44-55, 118, 136.

First published in conjunction with the exhibition, Titian Prince of Painters. Prestel-Verlag Verlegerdienst, Munchen GmbH & Co KG, Gutenbergstrasse, Federal Republic of Germany. 1990. Print. Pages: 1-28, 267-268, 327-328.

Goffen, Rona, Titian’s Women. Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College of Art Association. Yale University Press, New Haven & London. 1997. Print.  Pages: 215-217, 224-227, 242-253, 265-273.

Gould, Cecil, The Perseus and Andromeda and Titian's Poesie. 
Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 105, No. 720 (Mar., 1963). Pages: 112-117.

Holmes, Charles, Titian's Venus and Adonis in the National Gallery. 
Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 44, No. 250 (Jan., 1924). Pages: 16, 18, 19, 21, 22.

Hope, Charles, Titian and His Patrons. Prestel-Verlag Verlegerdienst, Munchen GmbH & Co KG, Gutenbergstrasse, Federal Republic of Germany. 1990. Print. Pages: 1-8.

Nash, Jane C., Veiled Images Titian’s Mythological Paintings for Philip II. Associated University Presses, Inc. Cranbury, NJ. 1985. Print. Pages: 22-39, 51-67.

Rearick, W.R., Titian's Later Mythologies. 
Source: Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 17, No. 33. 1996. Pages: 23-67.

Wethley, Harold E., The Paintings of Tititan. III The Mythological and History Paintings. Phaidon Press Ltd. London. 1975. Print. Pages: 41-42, 71-84.