Titian - ebook

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

I THE PHYSICIAN PARMA

II THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN (Detail)

III THE EMPRESS ISABELLA

IV MADONNA AND CHILD WITH SAINTS

V PHILIP II

VI SAINT CHRISTOPHER

VII LAVINIA

VIII CHRIST OF THE TRIBUTE MONEY

IX THE BELLA

X MEDEA AND VENUS (Formerly called Sacred and Profane Love)

XI THE MAN WITH THE GLOVE

XII THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN (Detail)

XIII FLORA

XIV THE PESARO MADONNA

XV ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST

XVI PORTRAIT OF TITIAN

PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY OF PROPER NAMES AND FOREIGN WORDS

FOOTNOTESPREFACE

To give proper variety to this little collection, the selections are equally divided between portraits and “subject” pictures of religious or legendary character.

The Flora, the Bella and the Philip II. show the painter’s most characteristic work in portraiture, while the Pesaro Madonna, the Assumption, and the Christ of the Tribute Money stand for his highest achievement in sacred art.

ESTELLE M. HURLL.

New Bedford, Mass.
March, 1901.

INTRODUCTION

I. ON TITIAN’S CHARACTER AS AN ARTIST.

“There is no greater name in Italian art—therefore no greater in art—than that of Titian.” These words of the distinguished art critic, Claude Phillips, express the verdict of more than three centuries. It is agreed that no other painter ever united in himself so many qualities of artistic merit. Other painters may have equalled him in particular respects, but “rounded completeness,” quoting another critic’s phrase, is “what stamps Titian as a master.”

To begin with the qualities which are apparent even in black and white reproduction, we are impressed at once with the vitality which informs all his figures. They are breathing human beings, of real flesh and blood, pulsing with life. They represent all classes and conditions, from such royal sitters as Charles V. and Philip II. to the peasants and boatmen who served as models for St. Christopher, St. John, and the Pharisee of the Tribute Money. They portray, too, every age: the tender infancy of the Christ child, the girlhood of the Virgin, the dawning manhood of the Man with the Glove, the maidenhood of Medea, the young motherhood of Mary, the virile middle life of Venetian Senators, the noble old age of St. Jerome and St. Peter, each is set vividly before us.

The list contains no mystics and ascetics: life, and life abundant, is the keynote of Titian’s art. The abnormal finds no place in it. Health and happiness are to him interchangeable terms.

Yet it must not be supposed that Titian’s delineation of life stopped short with the physical: he was besides a remarkable interpreter of the inner life. Though not as profound a psychologist as Leonardo or Lotto, he had at all times a just appreciation of character, and, on occasion, rose to a supreme touch in its interpretation. In such studies as the Flora, where he is interested chiefly in working out certain technical problems, he takes small pains to make anything more of his subject than a beautiful animal. The Man with the Glove stands at the other end of the scale. Here we have a personality so individual, and so possessing, as it were, that the portrait takes rank among the world’s masterpieces of psychic interpretation.

In his best works Titian’s sense of the dramatic holds the golden mean between conventionality and sensationalism. In the group of sacred personages surrounding the Madonna and Child there is sufficient action to constitute a reason for their presence,—to relieve the figures of that artificial and purely spectacular character which they have in the earlier art,—yet the action is restrained and dignified as befits the occasion. The pose of both figures in the Christ of the Tribute Money is in the highest degree dramatic without being in any way theatrical. The tempered dignity of Titian’s dramatic power is also admirably seen in the Assumption of the Virgin. The apostles' action is full of passion, yet without violence; the buoyant motion of the Virgin is unmarred by any exaggeration.

The same painting illustrates Titian’s magnificent mastery of composition. Perhaps the Pesaro Madonna alone of all his other works is worthy to be classed with it in this respect. It is impossible to conceive of anything better in composition than these two works. Not a line in either could be altered without detriment to the organic unity of the plan.

The crowning excellence of Titian is his color. The chief of the school in which color was the characteristic quality, he represents all the best elements in its color work. If others excelled him in single efforts or in some one respect, none equalled him for sustained grandeur. A recent criticism sums up his color qualities succinctly in these words: “He had at once enough of golden strength, enough of depth, enough of éclat; his color, profound and powerful per se, impresses us more than that of the others, because he brought more of other qualities to enforce it.”

Titian’s works easily fall into a few groups, according to the subject treated. In mythological themes he was in his natural element. Here he could express the sheer joy of living which was common to the Venetian and the Greek. Here physical beauty was its own excuse for being, without recourse to any ulterior significance. Here he could exercise unhindered his marvellous skill in modelling the human form along those perfect lines of grace which give Greek sculpture its distinctive character. It is in his earlier period that his affinity with the Greek spirit is closest, and we see it in perfect fruition in the Medea and Venus.

Titian’s treatment of sacred subjects is in the diverse moods of his many-sided artistic nature. The great ceremonial altar pieces, such as the Assumption of the Virgin, and the Pesaro Madonna, are a perfect reflection of the religious spirit of his environment. Religion was with the Venetians a delightful pastime, an occasion for festivals and pageants, a means of increasing the civic glory. These great decorative pictures are full of the pomp and magnificence dear to Venice, full of the joy and pride of life.

Yet in another mood Titian paints the life of the Holy Family as a pastoral idyl. A sunny landscape, a happy young mother, a laughing baby boy, bring the sacred subject very near to common human sympathies.

Some of Titian’s professedly sacred pictures are in the vein of pure genre, painted in a period when this department of art had not yet attained independent existence. We see such works in the St. Christopher and the St. John. These direct studies of the people throw an interesting light upon the painter of ideal beauty: they show an otherwise unsuspected vigor.

The Christ of the Tribute Money stands alone in Titian’s sacred art. The technical qualities are thoroughly characteristic of his hand, but a new note is struck in spiritual feeling. Virile, without coarseness; gentle, without weakness, the chief figure is perhaps the most intellectual ideal of Christ which has been conceived in art.

Titian’s landscapes, though holding an accessory place only in his art, are counted by the critical art historian with those of Giorgione, as the practical beginning of this branch of art. He knew how to express “the quintessence of nature’s most significant beauties without a too slavish adherence to any special set of natural facts.” His imagination interpreted many of nature’s moods, from the pastoral calm environing Medea and Venus to the stormy grandeur of the forest in which St. Peter Martyr met his fate.

It is undoubtedly as a portrait-painter that Titian’s many great qualities meet in their utmost perfection. His feeling for textures, the delicacy with which he painted the hair and the hands; his skill in modelling; his instinct for pose; the infinite variety of his resources, made an incomparable equipment in the secondary matters of portrait painting. To these he added, as we have seen, the two highest essentials of the art, the power of giving life to his sitter, and the gift of insight into character.

Nature made him a court painter; he loved to impart to his sitter that air of noble distinction whose secret he so well understood. Yet he was too large a man to let this or any other natural preference hamper him. Something of himself, it is true, he frequently put into his figures, yet he was at times capable of thoroughly objective work. He stands perhaps somewhere between the extreme subjectivity of Van Dyck and the splendid realism of Velasquez. The noble company of his sitters, emperors, kings, doges, popes, cardinals and bishops, noblemen, poets and beautiful women, still make their presence felt in the world. Theirs was a deathless fame on whom the painter conferred the gift of his art.

Titian’s temperament was keenly sensitive to the influences of his environment, and in his extraordinary length of days, Venice passed through various changes, political, social, artistic and religious, which left their mark upon his work. One cannot make a random selection from his pictures and pronounce upon the qualities of his art. The work of his youth, his maturity, his old age, has each a character of its own. It is this rounding out of his art life through successive stages of growth and even of decay that gives the entire body of his works the character of a living organism.

II. ON BOOKS OF REFERENCE.

The original source of biographical material relating to Titian is in Vasari’s “Lives of the Painters,” the best edition of which is the Foster translation, annotated with critical and explanatory comments by E. H. and E. W. Blashfield and A. A. Hopkins. The most complete modern biography is that by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, in two large volumes (published in 1877), but as this is now out of print, it can be consulted only in the large libraries. Some of the conclusions of these writers have been challenged by later critics, Morelli and others, and should not be accepted without weighing the new arguments. The volume on “Titian: A Study of his Life and Work,” by Claude Phillips, Keeper of the Wallace Collection, London, is in line with the modern methods of criticism, and is written in a delightful vein of appreciation. The two parts of the book, The Earlier Work and The Later Work, correspond to the two monographs for “The Portfolio,” in which the work was first published.

In the general histories of Italian art, valuable chapters on Titian are contained in Kugler’s “Handbook of the Italian Schools” (to be read in the latest edition by A. H. Layard) and Mrs. Jameson’s “Early Italian Painters” (to be read in the latest revision by Estelle M. Hurll). A monograph on Titian is issued in the German Series of Art Monographs, edited by H. Knackfuss.

Interesting suggestions upon the study of Titian’s art will be found in the following references: In Mrs. Oliphant’s “Makers of Venice;” in Berenson’s “Venetian Painters of the Renaissance;” in Symonds’s volume on Fine Arts in the series “Renaissance in Italy.” Burckhardt’s “Cicerone” has some valuable pages on Titian, but the book is out of print. A List of Titian’s work is given in Berenson’s “Venetian Painters.”

III. HISTORICAL DIRECTORY OF THE PICTURES OF THIS COLLECTION.

Portrait frontispiece. Probably the portrait mentioned by Vasari as painted in 1502. In the Prado Gallery, Madrid. Size: 2 ft. 10 in. by 2 ft. 1½ in.

1. The Physician Parma. It appears that there is no direct testimony to prove the authorship of this picture, the attribution to Titian having been made by an early director of the gallery, following certain evidence from Rudolfi. Herr Wickhoff claims the picture for Domenico Campagnola, and the recent biographer of Giorgione (Herbert Cook) includes it among the works of that painter. The attribution to Titian is, however, not disputed by the two severest of modern critics, Morelli and Berenson. In the Vienna Gallery. Size: 3 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 7 in.

2. The Presentation of the Virgin (Detail). Painted for the brotherhood of S. Maria della Carità, and now in the Venice Academy. Date assigned by Berenson 1540. Size of entire picture: 11 ft. 5 in. by 25 ft. 6½ in.

3. The Empress Isabella. Probably one of the two pictures referred to in a letter of 1544 from Titian to Charles V. In the Prado Gallery, Madrid. Size: 3 ft. 10 in. by 3 ft. 2½ in.

4. Madonna and Child with Saints. An early work in the Vienna Gallery, similar to a picture in the Louvre, to which it is considered superior by Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Called an “atelier repetition” by Claude Phillips. Size: 3 ft. 5 in. by 4 ft. 3 in.

5. Philip II. Painted 1550, and now in the Prado Gallery, Madrid. Size: 6 ft. 4 in. by 3 ft. 7¾ in.

6. St. Christopher. Painted in fresco on the wall of the Doge’s Palace, Venice, in honor of the arrival of the French army at San Cristoforo (near Milan), 1523. Ordered by the doge Andrea Gritti, who was a partisan of the French.

7. Lavinia. Painted about 1550, and now in the Berlin Gallery. Size: 3 ft. 3½ in. by 2 ft. 7½ in.

8. Christ of the Tribute Money. According to Vasari, painted for Duke Alfonso of Ferrara in 1514 for door of a press. Assigned by Crowe and Cavalcaselle to the year 1518, the date accepted by Morelli. In the Dresden Gallery. Size: 2 ft. 5½ in. by 1 ft. 10 in.

9. The Bella. Painted about 1535. In the Pitti Gallery, Florence. Size: 3 ft. 3½ in. by 2 ft. 6 in.

10. Medea and Venus. Date unknown, but fixed approximately by Morelli between 1510 and 1512. In the Borghese Gallery, Rome. Size: 3 ft. 5 in. by 8 ft. 8 in.

11. The Man with the Glove. Assigned to Titian’s middle period. In the Louvre, Paris. Size: 3 ft. 31/3 in. by 2 ft. 11 in.

12. The Assumption of the Virgin (Detail). Ordered 1516 for high altar of S. Maria Gloriosa de’ Frari, Venice. Shown to public, March 20, 1518. Now in the Venice Academy. Size: 22 ft. 9 in. by 11 ft. 10½ in.

13. Flora. Painted after 1523. In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Size: 3 ft. 8½ in. by 3 ft. 1½ in.

14. The Pesaro Madonna. Finished in 1526 after being seven years in process. Still in original place in the Church of the Frari, Venice.

15. St. John the Baptist. Painted in 1556. In the Venice Academy. Size: 6 ft. 5 in. by 4 ft. 5 in.

IV. OUTLINE TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN TITIAN’S LIFE.

1477. Titian born at Cadore in the Friuli, north of Venice. Circa 1488. Removal to Venice. Bet. 1507-1508. Work on frescoes of Fondaca de’ Tedeschi with Giorgione. 1511. In Padua and Vicenza. Frescoes in the Scuola del Santo, Padua. Circa 1512. Marriage. 1516. Assumption of the Virgin begun for the Church of the Frari, Venice. Titian’s first connection with Alfonso I. and the Court of Ferrara. 1518. Assumption finished. 1519. Visit in Ferrara, and the Bacchanal, now in the Madrid Gallery. 1522. Altarpiece for Brescia, and short visit there. 1523. Visits at Mantua and Ferrara. 1524. Visit in Ferrara. Circa 1525. Birth of Titian’s son Pomponio. 1526. Pesaro Madonna. 1528. Visit in Ferrara. 1530. Visit in Bologna. St. Peter Martyr delivered April 27, for Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Death of Titian’s wife. 1531. Visit in Ferrara. Removal from town to suburban residence in Biri. 1532. Summons to court of Charles V. at Bologna. Portraits of the Emperor. 1536. With the Emperor at Astic. 1537. Portraits of Duke and Duchess of Urbino and the Battle of Cadore. Paintings in Hall of Council of Venice (destroyed by fire 1577). 1540. Visit to Mantua to attend the funeral of patron Duke Federico Gonzaga. 1541. Appointment with Emperor at Milan. 1543. Guest of Cardinal Farnese at Ferrara and Brussels. Portraits of Cardinal Farnese and Pope Paul III. 1544. Two portraits of the dead Empress Isabella sent to Charles V. 1545. Visit to Rome, and portraits of Paul III. and his grandsons. 1546. Departure from Rome, visit to Florence and return to Venice. 1547. Completion of altarpiece of Serravalle. 1548. Journey to Augsburg to meet Charles V., and equestrian portrait of the Emperor. To Milan to meet Prince Philip and Duke of Alva. Portrait of Alva. 1549. Purchase of the house at Biri, formerly rented. 1550. Visit to court at Augsburg, and portraits of Philip II. 1554. Pictures completed and sent to Charles V. and Philip II. in Spain: The Virgin Lamenting, the Trinity, the Danaë. Venus and Adonis sent to London to Philip upon marriage with Mary Tudor. 1555. Marriage of Titian’s daughter Lavinia. Perseus and Andromeda sent to King Philip. 1556. St. John the Baptist, painted for S. Maria Maggiore. 1559. Entombment sent to Philip. 1562. Christ in the Garden, and the Europa. Last Supper begun. 1563. Visit to Brescia. 1565. Visit to Cadore, and plans for frescoes in the Pieve church. 1567. Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and a Venus sent to Madrid. 1572. Visit from Cardinals Granvelle and Pacheco. 1574. Visit from Henry III. of France. Allegory of Lepanto finished for Philip II. 1575. Pieta begun. 1576. Death of Titian from plague at Venice.

V. SOME OF TITIAN’S CONTEMPORARIES.

RULERS.

Emperors:—
Maximilian I. of Germany, 1493-1519.
Charles V. of Germany (I. of Spain) crowned Holy Roman Emperor, 1520. Died 1558.

Kings:—
Philip II. son and successor of Charles V., accession, 1556; death, 1598.
Henry VIII. of England, reigned 1509-1547.
Edward VI. “ “ 1547-1553.
Mary Tudor “ “ 1553-1558.
Elizabeth “ “ 1558-1603.
Francis I. “ “ 1515-1547.
Henry II. “ “ 1547-1559.
Catherine de’ Medici real ruler of France in reigns of Francis II. and Charles IX., 1559-1574.

Popes:—
Sixtus IV., 1471.Paul III., 1534.
Innocent VIII., 1485.Julius III., 1550.
Alexander VI., 1492.Marcellus II., 1555.
Pius III., 1503.Paul IV., 1555.
Julius II., 1503.Pius IV., 1559.
Leo N., 1513.Pius V., 1566.
Adrian VI., 1522.Gregory XIII., 1572.
Clement VII., 1523.

Doges of Venice:—
Giov. Mocenigo, 1478.Francesco Donato, 1545.
Marco Barbarigo, 1485.Marco Trevisan, 1553.
Agostino Barbarigo, 1486.Francesco Venier, 1554.
Leonardo Loredan, 1501.Lorenzo Priuli, 1556.
Antonio Grimani, 1521.Girolamo Priuli, 1559.
Andrea Gritti, 1523.Pietro Loredan, 1567.
Pietro Lando, 1528.Alvise Mocenigo I., 1570.

Painters:—
Giovanni Bellini, 1428-1516.
Perugino, 1446-1523.
Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519.
Michelangelo, 1475-1564.
Bazzi (II Sodoma), 1477-1549.
Giorgione, 1477-1510.
Palma Vecchio, 1480-1528.
Raphael, 1483-1520.
Sebastian del Piombo, 1485-1547.
Andrea del Sarto, 1486-1531.
Correggio, 1494-1534.
Giorgio Vasari, 1512-1574.
Tintoretto, 1518-1594.
Paolo Veronese, 1528-1588.

Men of Letters:—
Ariosto, 1474-1533, poet.
Aretino, 1492-1557, poet.
Tasso, 1544-1595, poet.
Pietro Bembo, 1470-1547, cardinal and master of Latin style.
Jacopo Sadoleto, 1477-1547, cardinal and writer of Latin verses.
Baldassare Castiglione, 1478-1529, diplomatist and scholar.
Aldo Manuzio, 1450-1515, printer; established press at Venice, 1490.
Guicciardini, 1483-1540, historian.

I THE PHYSICIAN PARMA

We are about to study a few pictures reproduced from the works of a great Venetian painter of the sixteenth century,—Titian. The span of this man’s life covered nearly a hundred years, from 1477 to 1576, a period when Venice was a rich and powerful city. The Venetians were a pleasure-loving people, fond of pomp and display. They delighted in sumptuous entertainments, and were particularly given to pageants. We read of the picturesque processions that paraded the square of St. Mark’s, or floated in gondolas along the grand canal. The city was full of fine buildings, palaces, churches, and public halls. Their richly ornamented fronts of colored marbles, bordering the blue water of the canals, made a brilliant panorama of color. The buildings were no less beautiful within than without, being filled with the splendid paintings of the Venetian masters.

The pictures in the churches and monasteries illustrated sacred story and the fives of the saints; those in the public halls depicted historical and allegorical themes, while the private palaces were adorned with mythological scenes and portraits.

Titian engaged in works of all these kinds, and seemed equally skilful in each. The great number and variety of his pictures bring vividly before us the manners and customs of his times. His art is like a great mirror in which Venice of the sixteenth century is clearly reflected in all her magnificence. As we study our little prints, we must bear in mind that the original paintings glow with rich and harmonious color. As far as possible let us try to supply this lost color from our imagination.

Nearly all the notable personages of the time sat to Titian for their portraits,—emperors, queens, and princes, popes, and cardinals, the doges, or dukes, of Venice, noblemen, poets, and fair women. Wearing the costumes of a bygone age, these men and women look out of their canvases as if they were still living, breathing human beings. The painter endowed them with the magic gift of immortality. Though the names of many of the sitters are now forgotten, and we know little or nothing of their lives, they are still real persons to us, with their life history written on their faces.

Such is the man called Parma, who is believed to have been a physician of Titian’s time, but whose only biography is this portrait. If we were told that it was the portrait of some eminent physician now practising in New York or London, we should perhaps be equally ready to believe it. We might meet such a figure in our streets to-morrow. There is nothing in the costume to mark it as peculiar to any century or country. The black gown is such as is still worn by clergymen and university men. The man would not have to be pointed out to us as a celebrity; we should know him at once as a person of distinction.

Fr. Hanfstaengl, photo., John Andrew & Son. Sc., THE PHYSICIAN PARMA, Vienna Gallery

The science of medicine was making great progress during the sixteenth century. It was then that the subject of anatomy was first developed by the celebrated Fleming, Vesalius, court physician to Charles V. In this period, also, the science of chemistry first came to be separated from alchemy, and progressive physicians applied the new learning to their practice.

We may be sure that our Doctor Parma belonged to the most enlightened class of his profession. His strong: intellectual face shows him to be one who would have little patience with quackery or superstition. He has a high, noble forehead, keen, penetrating eyes, and a firm mouth. His beautiful white hair gives him a venerable aspect, though he is not of great age. It blows about his face as fine and light as gossamer. He is an ideal “family physician,” of a generation ago. We can imagine how children would learn to look upon him with love and respect, perhaps also with a little wholesome fear.

The hand which holds the folds of the long, black gown has a character of its own as definite as that of the face. It is a strong, firm hand, which looks capable of guiding skilfully a surgeon’s knife.

Two fine seal rings ornament it. Such rings, sometimes of curious design and workmanship, were often bestowed as gifts by wealthy noblemen upon those who had done them some service.

The doctor Parma looks as good as he is wise. This benign face would grace an assembly of notable clergymen. Indeed, the picture suggests a well-known portrait of the great John Wesley, whose features were cast in the same strong mould, and who also had an abundance of bushy white hair.

By another play of the fancy we could imagine this a portrait of some eminent judge. There is that in the face which indicates the calm, impartial, deliberate mind that belongs to the character. He might now be about to charge the jury, or perhaps even to pronounce sentence.

Still another opinion is that here we have a Venetian senator in his official robes. The man is in any case an ideal professional man, a person of brains and character, who could fill equally well a position of responsibility in medicine, law, administrative affairs, or divinity. With a strict sense of justice, a stern contempt for anything mean and base, and a fatherly tenderness for the weak and oppressed, he is one in whom we could safely put confidence.