Status on the Paintings by Michelangelo and Titian

Last Judgement, Michelangelo

Rape of Europa, Titian

I am currently reading articles about the masterpiece, Last Judgement by Michelangelo as well as doing research on the two paintings by Titian, Venus and Adonis, Perseus and Andromeda and Rape of Europa.  So much can be written about these paintings as they are full of iconography and stories within in the narrative.  Please look for more information on these paintings as I complete my research within the next few days.

Venus and Adonis, Titian

Perseus and Andromeda, Titian

Venus of Urbino by Rona Goffen

Assumption of the Virgin

At a very young age, Titian’s popularity originated with the largest panel painting in the world, Assumption of the Virgin, for the high altar of S Maria Gloriosa dei Frari.  A remarkable artist, Titian, whom was the first to had have an international career from the greatest patrons (who approached Titian), including Charles V and Philip II.  It was Charles V who gave Titian an honorable title, Knight of the Golden Spur, Count of Latern Palace and of the Imperial Consistory; and recognized Titian as a portraitist much like Alexander the Great admired his favorite painter, Apelles.  Known for his painterly brushwork and animated handling of pigment, known as colorito, Titian succeeded in gaining artistic freedom in his compositions (beginning with Philip II), an accomplishment that few artists achieved during the Renaissance.

Venus of Urbino

In 1538, Titian painted Venus of Urbino for Guidobaldo II della Rovere.  It is interesting to know that no other artist had placed a nude woman reclining on a bed in a room decorated with marriage chests in a 16^th century palace as well as a woman directly engaging the viewer.  Additionally, no literary source was the foundation for Titian’s painting, Venus of Urbino, however, many history scholars and researchers in their over interpretation of Titian’s nudes have concluded to conflicting and complementary theories from erotic art to understanding 16^th century women as goddesses or courtesans.  Nevertheless, Titian’s painting does not fit a theory, yet it portrays a traditional association, beautiful women as beautiful art, and in doing so, the artist reveals his own genius.

Danae

Danae, Naples

Danae, Madrid, Museo del Prado

In 1554, shortly before Philip II left for England to marry Mary Tudor, Titian sent his first Poesia, the Danae (Madrid, Museo del Prado) for Philip’s camerino in the Royal Palace in Madrid, Spain.  Titian returned to a subject that he had painted during the previous decade for the Roman Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (Naples).  In designing his canvas for Philip II, Titian borrowed Danae’s pose and several iconographic details from his earlier work, however, he altered a number of major elements in the scene and consequently, he varied his entire interpretation of the myth as well.  Titian’s composition may depict the myth of Danae, but not as it is presented in the artist’s supposed source.  In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Danae is hardly mention at all and only in the context of her son’s encounter with Andromeda, when Perseus introduces himself to the princess’s parents by proclaiming:

My name is Perseus, son of Jupiter and of Danae, whom Jupiter made pregnant with his fertile gold, and that though she was imprisoned in a tower.

The Farnese’s painting is marked by a sculptural style and a monumental setting dominated by a huge Doric column.  As Jupiter arrives in a burst of golden rain and coins, a cupid turns towards the right, cringing before the god’s explosion.  Quite differently in Philip’s painting, a rough masonry wall replaces the column and reveals a more open sky; a dog sleeps (a  popular emblem of marital fidelity) next to a more upright Danae; the sheet no longer conceals her thigh and her left hand is between her legs; and an old hag appears in place of Cupid.  Moreover, the scene is portrayed with a network of loose impasto brush strokes that are loaded with heated tones of red, gold, and turquoise.  Reddish contours are everywhere on the figure in combination with the red drapery, the red trim of the pillow, the red bed clothe and the reddish shadows on Danae’s body.  The brightest lights are painted with impasto in Danae’s pearl earring and the glow in her eye, the light around the clouds and the bells on the sleeping dog’s collar.

            Danae’s characterization as a courtesan had the literary endorsement of such influential masters as Horace, among the ancients and Boccaccio, among the Italians.  Describing Jupiter as the money of bribery, Horace associates Danae’s guardians as pimps and Danae, herself to be a harlot.  Boccaccio was even more damning, characterizing Danae as an adulteress and concubine and concludes that she sold herself to Jupiter.  But Titian contradicts these accusations with the visual evidence of Danae’s emotion as she receives her lover.  In Titian’s Danae, the two women (Danae and old hag) do not collaborate as harlot and pimp.  On the contrary, the maid is presented as Danae’s opposite, both physically and morally; while Danae sees her lover in the shower that she welcomes in her womb, the result being the conception of Perseus, while on the other hand, the hag sees only gold that she seeks to catch in her apron.  The hag lusts only for money, and perhaps Jupiter has indeed bribed her; but Danae’s response is passionate, not illicit.  Titian does not seek to deny Boccaccio’s claim that the description of Danae’s Beauty had aroused Jupiter’s desire, but reasserts the importance of sight as the influential language of love.  In doing so, Titian confirms ancient and Renaissance theories about love that it is communicated first through sight, as the superior sense as sight dominates sound and painting rewrites poetry.

Philip II Poesie

Philip II in Full Amour by Titian

In 1549, in Northern Italy, Titian first met Philip II, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, when he painted a full-length portrait of the prince in armor.  Philip II had a solid foundation in philosophy, theology and classical culture as well an impressive training in arts, which led him to become a connoisseur of music, a respectable poet and an outstanding patron of the visual arts.  Additionally, Philip II was thoroughly cultured in the languages of Spanish, French, Italian and Latin and read the classics by Vergil, Livy and Horace and later owned Ovid’s Metamorphoses, an Italian translation by Lodovico Dolce.

A year later, at the invitation of Philip II, Titian revisited Augsberg and established a relationship with him that would last a quarter of a century.  The arrangement made would produce about twenty-five large pictures, some mythological and some religious, in return for a secure and substantial income (even if it was not paid on time), which placed Titian in a more privileged position than any other artist of his age (now in his sixties) along with the freedom to choose his own subject manner.

The most famous of Philip’s paintings are the Poesie (as Titian called them), which are six subjects taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses; however, none of the six works truly illustrates the passages upon which they are supposedly based.  Icongraphically, the Poesie are considered the most complex and enigmatic of Renaissance paintings and stylistically, they combine classical ideals and mannerist distortions as well as rejecting the normal Renaissance ideals of painterly and intellectual clarity.  However, the Poesie reveals Titian’s deep understanding of contemporary art theory and classical sources, and stands as a fundamental expression of his thoroughly Renaissance creative genius.  Titian displays all of his classicism through luminous highlights, atmospheric shadows, and broad fields of vivid color, which creates the effect of a euphoric sensation of life.

It has surprised some historians that Philip II, considered a straitlaced, strict Catholic, should have acquired such obviously sensual and erotic paintings.  However, several of Titian’s other aristocratic patrons - Alfonso d’Este (Bacchanal of the Adrians and Bacchus and Ariadne), Roman Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (Danae), Archbishop and Guidobaldo della Rovere (Venus of Urbino) - had received paintings of similar character.  Mythology was an established and respectable genre, one that gave artists an opportunity to display their skill by illustrating the great poets and in this case Ovid, Metamorphoses.

Danae

When Titian first started sending the mythological paintings, Philip was still a young man and had not assumed the responsibilities of the Catholic monarch. Philip’s Poesie was painted in two pairs for a total of six, which shows the female figure from different points of view and each work refers primarily to its pendant, beginning with Danae and Venus and Adonis, the interrelations of Diana Discovered by Actaeon and Diana and Callisto, followed by Perseus and Andromeda and Rape of Europa.   For the most part, the stories were concerned with the loves of the gods and Titian was clearly interested in portraying dramatic action, conflict and tragedy and expressing a wide range of human emotions with its prevalent mood of self-indulgence.

Venus and Adonis

My research blog will be focused on four of the six poesie, Danae and its pendant, Venus and Adonis followed by Perseus and Andromeda and its pendant, Rape of Europa.

Perseus and Andromeda

Rape of Europa

Research Paper on the Titian’s Mythological Paintings for Philip II

The famous Venetian artist, Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) born ca. 1488 and died 1576, was the first artist to painted in oils and fully exploited the medium’s potential for richness in color through his expressive thick paint application with raised brushstrokes known as impasti. This new technique freed the brush from the task of accurately rendering surfaces, volumes, and details and as a result Titian was able to convey light through color and breath life, movement and strong emotion into his characters portrayed on the canvas. With Titian’s most important and influential friends, Aretino and Lodovico Dolce, whose letters and writings praised the extraordinary work of Titian and addressed the powerful throughout Europe, Titian rapidly became the principal painter to the Imperial Court, (independent from the controls and conditioning of the Church), which gave him immense privileges, honors, and even titles such as principal painter to Charles V and Philip II, who were the two greatest collectors and admirers of Titian.

The art of Titian became a fundamental inspiration for three of the famous painters of the 17^th century, Rubens, Van Dyck and Velazquez as all three painters developed a fluency of brushwork and a richness of color in their palette.  Furthermore, Titian provide powerful compositional models (over six hundred) for almost every type of commission from portraits to altarpieces from ceiling painting to erotic mythological narratives placed in landscapes, most notably, the six enigmatic canvases, the Poesie, painted between 1551 to 1562 for Philip II.

Renaissance Man by Adam Gopnik

Without a doubt, Leonardo had the inability to finish a piece of work; however, has anyone considered that because of his compulsive obsession with the universal system of proportion and seeing abstract form in everything that Leonardo could have had an attention deficit disorder.

Most importantly, it was through his keen observation that Leonardo was known as a genius well before his time and legendary through his remaining perceptive notebooks and the famous half-smile known all over the world.  One wonders, what other kinds of information that Leonardo had written in his misplaced notebooks.   In addition, Leonardo knew how to handle the most intolerable people in power and with wealth through his use of riddles, fables and theatre productions, therefore, helping him to utilize his time in further observation and study.

As for his preference for women or men, who cares, as it is hard to believe that he had the time to invest in relationships considering his upbringing with two mothers and a father that sent off to a studio to learn more about art?  What is noteworthy is the work that Leonardo accomplished in his lifetime in so many different fields, such as, the military, engineering, art, architecture and a romanticized side to historical Leonardo.

Art Theories of Leonardo and Michelangelo

Although, Leonardo was known for his engineering inventions and Michelangelo for sculpture, it is with certainty, that Leonardo and Michelangelo were the famous painters of the Italian Renaissance.  It is interesting to discover that both artists, Leonardo and Michelangelo, wrote down their art theories, their views and beliefs about nature and their methods in how they created their paintings.

 

Leonardo had a profound belief in the value of experiment and of direct observation that he saw in the human body, in plants and in the formation of rocks.  Furthermore, Leonard understood painting as a science because of its foundation on mathematical perspectives and the study of nature. While on the other hand, Michelangelo believed that profound beauty was found in the human body, the visible universe present in nature and in spiritual and the divine.  According to Michelangelo, the eye was the most important vehicle to motivate the artist to create and for the viewer to contemplate the divine beauty that was inspired from God.  In contrast, Leonardo was deeply opposed to speculation not based on experiment and believed that painting depended on th

e eye, which could be easily deceived, and through actual measurements and principles of geometry ensured the eye’s judgments.

As for their painting methods, Michelangelo relied on his imagination and individual inspiration rather than on obedience to any fixed standards of beauty.  Oppositely, Leonardo believe that what he created must always have the exact foundation and justification in nature, and therefore fill his mind with images based on the exact knowledge of nature so that the imagination would have a solid foundation for its inventions.

As time progressed, the artists painting methods changed as well.  Michelangelo interest became more focused on the inward mental image that transcends everything which can be found in the visible world.  Too, Michelangelo believed that love of physical beauty lost its strength and true love that of spiritual beauty gave perfect satisfaction as it does not fade with time and elevates the mind to the contemplation of the divine.  Whereas, Leonardo was always interested in the contrast of the beautiful and ugly found the in the characteristics of the individual, a fixed rule of proportion that should be applied to all limbs of the body, and the language of gestures and facial expressions to convey the emotions and ideas in a person’s mind.

In conclusion, both, Leonardo and Michelangelo, offered valuable instruction to artists that followed in the master’s footsteps by combining the inspiration from nature and the divine with the exactness of proportions, gestures and expressions that is found in all life forms.