Image Not Available
for Titian
Titian
Italian, c. 1485 - 1576
Giorgione and his pupil appear to have worked closely together and the dates of their collaboration enable us to establish Titian's date of birth as 1485 or 1488. He married in 1525 but his wife, Cecilia, died in 1530 leaving him with four children, two boys and two girls. The first, Pomponio, became a priest; the second, Orazio, was a painter; one of his daughters died while still young and the other, Lavinia, was immortalised by her father in numerous portraits and paintings in which she plays a principal role. One of Titian's sisters took over care of the children and in 1531, one year after his wife's death, Titian left his lodgings in the San Samuele area of Venice for a larger dwelling with a garden at Biri, in the north-east of the city, and it was there that his children grew up. Frequent visitors to the house included the architect Sansovino and the poet Pietro Aretino - who with Titian formed a powerful 'triumvirate' in Venice - as well as Jacopo Nardi, the Florentine historian.
The passing years did nothing to diminish Titian's vigour and productive power. When he returned to his lodgings on the outskirts of Venice it was to deal with the many commissions that awaited him. He worked continuously throughout his life. In 1566, when Vasari came to award him with the title of honorary member of the guild of Florentine painters, he found him at his easel, driving his apprentices to the point of exhaustion. However, unlike Tintoretto, who lacked material ambition, almost never left Venice and kept himself aloof from society, Titian travelled a great deal and was received, honoured and rewarded by court after court and enjoyed a life of luxury. In 1574, he collaborated with Tintoretto on the city's decorations in honour of the visit of Henry III of France to Venice. Titian was struck by the plague and died in 1576. He must therefore have died at the age of about 90, contrary to popular tradition, which has him living to the age of 101. In spite of the law prohibiting plague victims from being buried in churches, Titian was entombed in the church of S Maria dei Frari for which he had painted the Madonna of the Casa Pesaro (still in the church) and his masterly Assumption (now in the Venice academy).
It appears that Titian's early work consisted of frescoes he painted to decorate the façades of noble houses. Sansovino mentions a Hercules he painted at the Palazzo Morosicci. Following Giorgione's death in 1510, Titian was commissioned to complete several paintings by Giorgione including the landscape of the Sleeping Venus (in Dresden) and the celebrated Concert Champêtre (in the Louvre) in which he painted the female figure on the left near the well. Over the centuries the Concert Champêtre has been repeatedly attributed to both Titian and Giorgione, which confirms a posteriori the aesthetic bond that linked the two artists.
In 1510, perhaps as a result of politicial problems, Titian left Venice for Padua. In the three frescoes showing The Miracles of St Anthony of Padua at the Scuola del Santo in Padua, which date from 1511, Titian breaks free from the influence of Giorgione: where Giorgione preferred empty metaphysical spaces isolating both the parts and the participants of the overall composition, Titian saturates these spaces with figures and familiar and ornamental detail. In 1513, after his return to Venice, he painted the rather strange and arbitrarily entitled piece Sacred and Profane Love (in the Borghese gallery in Rome), the true meaning of which can be found in the symbolism that was the vehicle of the century's humanist esotericism. By that time Titian's reputation was sufficiently established for him to write to the Doge and the Maggior Consiglio - concerned more with glory than profit, so he said - requesting to paint the Battle of Cadore in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in return for a lifetime appointment as a maritime broker, taking the first seat vacated at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. His request was granted and he started work. However, Giovanni Bellini mounted such intense opposition that the council's decree was revoked and Titian was not able to enjoy the benefits of his position until after Bellini's death in 1516.
Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, summoned Titian to his court in February 1516, together with his two assistants, and installed him in the ducal palace with a weekly allowance of 'salad, salted meat, oil, chestnuts, candles, oranges, cheese and five measures of wine'. Titian extended his stay and painted portraits of the Duke, the Duke's wife Lucrezia Borgia and his mistress the beautiful Laura Dianti; all these works have disappeared but are known from old copies. Laura Dianti appears again in the painting Woman at her Toilette at the Louvre. The Duke appears to have been fond of images of corpulent female nudes. Titian also painted the Flora (in the Uffizi); in 1518, for the Duke's chambers, he painted The Offering to Venus and a Bacchanal (both now in Madrid). He also completed Bellini's Bacchanal. It was during his time at the Duke's court that Titian became friends with Ariosto. Between then and 1523 - the year in which he probably produced Bacchus and Ariadne (now at the National Gallery, London) - Titian made several trips to Venice and to other towns and cities and it was at this period, between 1518 and 1526, during a stay in Venice, that he painted the Assumption and the Madonna and Saints with Members of the Pesaro Family for the church of S Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. He is known to have been in Ancona in 1520 painting a Crucifixion, an altarpiece for the church of S Domenico and The Virgin in Glory with St Francis, St Alvise and the Donor for the church of S Francesco; in 1520 he painted an Annunciation for Treviso Cathedral; at Brescia in 1522 he executed an altar polyptych showing The Resurrection, at the church of Santi Nazzaro e Celso; at the Doge's palace in Venice he painted a St Christopher dated 1523. The same year he executed a Madonna for the Vatican.
From 1523 onwards, Titian's career was marked by continuous success. After the Duke of Ferrara, the marquess and later Duke of Mantua, Frederigo Gonzaga II, became his patron: around 1530 Titian painted for him The Madonna of the Rabbit now in the Louvre. According to Vasari, Charles V became his main patron in 1530 (1533 according to other sources). Vasari relates that Titian went to join the Emperor in Bologna after his coronation and executed a portrait of him in armour. Crowe and Cavalcaselle dispute this, considering it more likely that the portrait was executed during Charles V's second stay in Bologna. It appears that there was an original portrait that was lost and that the portrait at the Prado was painted during their second encounter. Titian enjoyed unquestionable success at the imperial court. Noblemen and dignitaries commissioned him to paint their portraits. He was made Count Palatine and Chevalier of the Golden Spur; he also received various privileges and allowances and on several occasions was summoned back by Charles V and later by Philip II.
In 1527 he returned to Venice, no doubt summoned back by order of the council which revoked his position as a commercial artist because of his failure to complete the painting of The Battle of Cadore; the council ordered him to repay the sums he had received for this since 1516. Pordenone, whose work in the public library was much admired, appears to have been commissioned to complete the painting. However, Titian managed to have the judgement revoked and completed the piece, which was destroyed in the fire of 1577 and is only known to us through copies and engravings.
In 1538 Titian was in Urbino where he painted portraits of the Della Rovere family (now in the Uffizi, Florence) and the Venus of Urbino (also in the Uffizi). This was painted in 1540 and therefore dates from the same period as the Pardo Venus in the Louvre. The Venus of Urbino is one of the great masterpieces of Titian's maturity. It is a masterpiece in several respects. While the inspiration clearly continues to derive from Giorgione, there are elements that distinguish it as Titian's - the obvious sensuality of the female nude, clear along the whole length of her body, from the sensual expression on her face to the position of her left hand, which focuses attention on what she feigns to conceal - a quality not found in Giorgione's impassive nudes. There is also a concern and desire to occupy and animate the spaces of the setting: behind the figure there are the hangings that isolate the nude from her surroundings and which in fact glorify her nudity; at her feet is a small sleeping dog; in the background of this wealthy interior, in front of an opening on to a garden punctuated with columns, there is a genre scene played out between two women of the household. During the same period, but in Venice, Titian was painting the immense Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple for the Scuola della Carità (now in the Accademia in Venice).
By 1541 he was back at the court of Charles V, now no longer in Bologna but in Milan; soon after he was back in Venice. There is a record from this period of an invitation from the reigning Pontiff, although Titian did not in fact go to Rome until 1545 when he was received by Pope Paul III and by Cardinal Farnese. Titian painted a series of portraits of the Pope.
Throughout his career Titian was very active as a portrait painter, painting both men and women; it is generally accepted that he was the most sought-after portraitist in Europe at this period. He brought something new to the art of portraiture: he showed an interest in the psychology of the model, adhering to this at a time when the mainstream continued to display the same impassiveness inherent in the genre up to that time. Among others, the series of portraits of Pope Paul III, which are in fact very different, demonstrate the extent to which Titian's portraiture was founded on both his psychological perceptiveness towards his model and on the characteristics that form his plastic style. These characteristics are difficult to define, but in addition to his technical mastery of the overall composition and its detail, one can identify a gritty and scintillating use of pigment which fastens on to the light and blends form with its surrounding space and the harmonisation of colour into a symphony of predominantly golden tones. Unusually, the visual and mental pleasure his portraiture affords extends to his male portraits, a genre more often treated in a less pleasing manner. This can be seen in the three portraits of Pope Paul III in the Capodimonte, Naples, which in fact form a whole linked by the style, the sumptuousness of the treatment and the energy, lassitude and malice expressed in the Pope's face in the three different renderings. In Rome Titian again encountered Giorgio Vasari, whom he had first met in Venice; he was also acquainted with Michelangelo. Among the works Titian executed in Rome were the Danaë (now in Naples) and many portraits, notably those of Cardinal Farnese and of several members of his family as well as that of Duke Ottavio, the Pope's grandson. Back in Venice, again in 1545, Titian painted a portrait of his friend Pietro Aretino (now in the Pitti Palace) and had no hesitation in revealing the proud, cynical and impudent nature of his character. In 1547 he is known to have executed an altarpiece for Serravalle Cathedral.
In 1548 Titian attended Charles V at the Diet of Augsburg in his capacity as a noble of the Empire. He executed the celebrated equestrian painting of Charles V at the Battle of Mühlberg (in Madrid) and the portrait of Charles V Seated (also in Madrid). He also painted a portrait of King Ferdinand, the king's five daughters and two sons, Maria of Hungary, John Frederick and Maurice of Saxony and two portraits of the royal prince of Spain who would later become Philip II (one of which is in the Prado in Madrid and the other in the Capodimonte in Naples). When he returned from the Diet of Augsburg in 1550, Titian continued to work for Charles V, painting the Exaltation of the Holy Trinity known as The Gloria (1551-1554) which the emperor took with him, together with the Ecce Homo of 1547 and the Virgin of Sorrows of 1550, to the monastery of Yuste following his abdication. When Philip II came to the throne he commissioned Titian to paint portraits, religious subjects and mythological scenes, including: The Entombment (1559), the Martyrdom of St Lawrence (1567), Venus and Adonis (1553), Diana and Callisto (1559) and The Rape of Europa (around 1560), some of which now form part of the Titian collection in Madrid. During this period it appears that Titian often returned to subjects he had already painted, such as the Danaë (1554), The Annunciation (1564) and the Entombment (1566) and that some of these works were executed by his assistants under his direction. However, his personal output remained considerable: in 1559 Diana and Actaeon, in 1564 four ceilings for the municipal hall of Brescia, in 1565 The Education of Cupid and in 1571 Tarquin and Lucretia. In 1573 he painted the Pietà (now in the Accademia, Venice), although the work was completed by Palma the Younger.
Some etchings and a series of powerfully drawn wood engravings entitled the Triumph of Faith are also attributed to Titian. Some art historians believe that these engravings were simply executed after drawings by Titian and perhaps under his direction. As a painter he tried many different genres, notably, in addition to portraiture, sacred and secular subjects, serious and frivolous themes, religious compositions and mythological and allegorical subjects. In his sacred works his tone is grave, as if he were filled with religious fervour - which he may well have been - and his religious compositions are both convincing and moving. In his light-hearted pieces, however, his formidable gifts as a decorative artist are fully brought to bear, but especially in his large-scale and conventional subjects such as Diana and Callisto and Diana and Actaeon this is clearly at the expense of genuine emotion. In this period of masters of the complex composition, as the stereotype would have it, Titian was the master of colour while Michelangelo, in contrast, was the master of drawing. If we are to give credence to the medley of anecdotes and facts reported by Vasari, while Michelangelo may have praised Titian's qualities as a colourist he also said that 'Titian would have been a great artist if only he had learned how to draw' - an assertion that does little for our appreciation of Michelangelo's intelligence. It is also said that in his desire to attain perfection Tintoretto wrote on his studio walls 'the colour of Titian and the drawing of Michelangelo'. Palma the Younger described Titian at work: 'He sketched out his paintings by applying masses of colour which served as a bed or foundation for what he wanted to express and on which he later relied. Then, with a touch of white, of white lead, and the same brush then dipped in red, black or yellow, he created pale and dark areas to give the effect of relief'. This is valuable information about Titian's method, as it was probably observed at first hand and describes aspects of the artist's preparatory technique and his method of working up the elements of his composition. All that is lacking is the definition of what makes Titian's art great. From the starting point of a very conventional iconography, Titian is able to apply total technical mastery to his compositions both as a whole and in the details inherent to them, added to which is his keen psychological insight that excites the emotions and the freedom of manner that defines his style. If we look at the Pietà of 1573, perhaps his final work, we find that it retains a certain unfinished quality, evidence of the discretion of Palma's intervention. The unfinished nature of the painting, the heavy touch that defines the draughtsmanship, a touch denser than usual, and the customary dominating yellow-gold which is almost monochrome here, perhaps reveal more clearly the fundamental stylistic characteristics of Titian's art. Here they appear in their virgin form, free from definition, the forms merged into the surrounding space in a unity of chromatic tonality.
The passion for Titian's art and the artist himself has never diminished and his works have appeared in numerous retrospective exhibitions around the world, including: in 1935, The Titian Exhibition (Mostra di Tiziano), Venice; in 1976 Homage to Titian (Omaggio a Tiziano), at the Istituto Universitario Olandese in Florence and the Dutch Institute in Paris; in 1976, Drawings by Titian and his Circle (Disegni di Tiziano e della sua Cerchia) at the Giorgio Cini Foundation, Venice; in 1977, Works by Titian in the Galleria Borghese in Rome (Le Opere di Tiziano alla Galleria Borghese di Roma); in 1981, From Titian to El Greco: the History of Mannerism in Venice 1540-1590 (Da Tiziano a El Greco: Per la Storia del Manierismo a Venezia, 1540-1590) at the Palazzo Ducale, Venice; in 1990 Titian (Tiziano) at the Palazzo Ducale, Venice and the National Gallery of Art, Washington; and 2003, Titian at the National Gallery in London and the Prado Museum in Madrid
"TITIAN." In Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/benezit/B00183273 (accessed April 16, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
Italian, about 1520 - 1563
