The Project Gutenberg EBook of Titian, by Samuel Levy Bensusan
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Title: Titian
Author: Samuel Levy Bensusan
Editor: T. Leman Hare
Release Date: October 21, 2013 [EBook #43988]
Language: English
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MASTERPIECES
IN COLOUR
EDITED BY - -
T. LEMAN HARE
TITIAN
1477 (?)-1576
"MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR" SERIES
ARTIST. AUTHOR.
VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN.
REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN.
TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND.
ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND.
GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN.
BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS.
ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO.
BELLINI. GEORGE HAY.
FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON.
REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS.
LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY.
RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY.
HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE.
TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN.
MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY.
CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY.
GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD.
TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN.
LUINI. JAMES MASON.
FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY.
VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER.
LEONARDO DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL.
RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN.
WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD.
HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN.
BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY.
VIGÉE LE BRUN. C. HALDANE MACFALL.
CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY.
FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL.
MEMLINC. W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE.
CONSTABLE. C. LEWIS HIND.
RAEBURN. JAMES L. CAW.
JOHN S. SARGENT. T. MARTIN WOOD.
LAWRENCE. S. L. BENSUSAN.
DÜRER. H. E. A. FURST.
MILLET. PERCY M. TURNER.
WATTEAU. C. LEWIS HIND.
HOGARTH. C. LEWIS HIND.
MURILLO. S. L. BENSUSAN.
WATTS. W. LOFTUS HARE.
INGRES. A. J. FINBERG.
_Others in Preparation._
[Illustration: PLATE I.--THE DUCHESS OF URBINO. Frontispiece
(In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence)
This portrait of the Duchess of Urbino from the Uffizi must not be
confused with the portrait of the Duchess in the Pitti Palace. The
sitter here is Eleonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, and the portrait
was painted somewhere between the years 1536 and 1538 at a period when
the master's art had ripened almost to the point of its highest
achievement.]
TITIAN
BY S. L. BENSUSAN
ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR
[Illustration: IN SEMPITERNUM.]
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Plate
I. The Duchess Of Urbino Frontispiece
In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Page
II. La Bella 14
In the Pitti Palace, Florence
III. The Entombment 24
In the Louvre
IV. The Holy Family 34
In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence
V. The Marriage of St. Catherine 40
In the Pitti Palace, Florence
VI. Flora 50
In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence
VII. Sacred and Profane Love 60
In the Borghese Palace, Rome
VIII. The Holy Family 70
In the National Gallery, London
I
Titian Vecelli, undeniably the greatest Venetian painter of the
Renaissance, leaps into the full light of the movement. To be sure he
appears full-grown, as Venus is said to have done when she appeared
above the foam in the waters of Cythera, or Pallas Athene when she
sprang from the brain of Zeus, but happily he was destined to live to a
great age.
We have few and scanty records to tell of the very early days. So wide
was his circle of patrons in after life, so intimate his acquaintance
with the leading men of his generation, that it is not difficult to
find out what manner of man he was without the aid of his pictures,
even though they have a very definite story to tell the painstaking
student.
There are well over one hundred important works, dealing with the life
and art of Titian, written by enthusiasts in half-a-dozen languages,
for of all the artists of the Renaissance he makes perhaps the most
direct appeal to the man _moyen sensuel_.
[Illustration: PLATE II.--LA BELLA
(In the Pitti Palace, Florence)
This wonderful example of Titian's portrait painting may be seen in the
Pitti Palace to-day, and was probably commissioned by the Duke of
Urbino somewhere about the year 1536. It will be noticed by students of
Titian that the model for this portrait appears in some of the master's
pictures as Venus.]
Fearless and unashamed, he gave the world pagan pictures, entering into
the joy of their creation with the enthusiasm of a schoolboy who has
found an orchard gate unlocked. To be sure the spirit of joy and of
youth passed with the years, even this most fortunate of painters knew
trouble, domestic and financial, but the beauty remained, expressing
the fullest vigour of the Renaissance movement, the supreme achievement
of human loveliness, the splendour of men and women.
Fortune was kind to Titian in many ways, and not in the least degree by
driving to the sheltering fold of the Venetian Republic the great men
of all lands who were hurrying to safety before the destroying advance
of Spain. It is right, at the same time, to remember that the leaders
of the destroying legions were the friends and patrons of the painter,
that the greatest of them all desired to be buried in the shadow of the
master's picture "La Gloria," now in the Prado. The time called for a
supremely gifted artist to render its great men immortal, or at least
to give them what we call immortality in the days when we forget that
if modern science be correct man has existed for some 250,000 years and
has not yet reached mental adolescence. Perhaps when he has developed
his brain, and can control the march of this planet and the duration of
his own life, he will not make half so attractive a subject for the
painters as did those men and women of the fifteenth and sixteenth
century whose beauty casts a spell over us to-day.
Titian was born at Pieve among the mountains of Cadore where the Tyrol
and Italy meet. His statue in bronze looks out towards Venice to-day
from the market-place of his native town, and the landscape that the
painter knew best, and gave time out of mind to his pictures, has
altered but little. He was a second son, and would seem to have been
born about the year 1480, but there was no registrar of births,
marriages, and deaths in Pieve and, while some authorities place the
date at 1477, the year that he himself favoured, others advance it as
far as 1482. There has been a great controversy about this birth date,
but it might be safe to place it rather later still.
Titian was the son of one Gregorio Vecelli, who seems to have been a
soldier and a man who held high position in the little town which, in
the early days of the fifteenth century, had cast in its lot with the
Venetian Republic. Nothing is known of his mother except her name, but
his elder brother named Francesco followed art until he was middle
aged, and there were two sisters Ursula and Katherine, of whom the
former kept house for the painter for many years in Venice, after the
death of his wife.
Francesco and Titian Vecelli developed at an early age a marked
feeling for painting, and in order that they might have every chance of
developing their gifts to the best advantage, Gregorio Vecelli took
them to Venice, which lay some seventy miles from Pieve, and left them
with a brother who had sufficient influence to secure for Titian
admission to the studios of the brothers Bellini, who then shared with
the Vivarini family the highest position in the art world of the
Republic. Gian Bellini, then a man past middle age, had in his studio
several pupils who were destined to achieve distinction. Palma Vecchio,
Sebastian del Piombo, and Giorgione of Castelfranco were among them,
and of these the last named was certainly the greatest. It is probable
that, had he lived, even Titian Vecelli must have toiled after him in
vain, for he influenced his fellow-student to an extent that is very
clearly revealed in the early pictures, and has even led to confusion
between the work of the two men, a confusion greatly increased by the
fact that Titian completed some of the pictures that Giorgione left
unfinished. Happily perhaps for Titian, though unfortunately for the
world at large, Giorgione was destined to fall a victim to one of the
plagues that ravaged Venice from time to time, and he died soon after
completing his thirtieth year, leaving Titian undisputed master of
Venetian painting.
Like all great men Titian was an assimilator. In his early days he
started out under the influence of Bellini. Then he surrendered, as
even his aged master did, to the strange, rare, and beautiful spirit of
poetry and romance that Giorgione brought into art. He may have helped
to develop and strengthen it, for he and Giorgione worked and lived
together. Finally when outside influences had died down Titian found
himself, and this was the greatest discovery of his life.
In the last years of Giorgione's short career he and Titian, both young
men, were engaged to decorate the great Commercial House of the
Germans, rebuilt upon the site of the older building that had been
destroyed by fire about the beginning of the year 1505. The work would
appear to have been started two years later. This united effort, purely
decorative, must have been worthy of its surroundings at a time when
Venice and beauty were almost synonymous terms; the greater part is
lost to us to-day.
Serious troubles were upon the Republic. The League of Cambrai, one of
the least scrupulous political arrangements in European history, had
resulted in an attack upon the Venetian domains that had been entirely
successful, though statecraft was destined to recover from the
Philistines of Europe a part at least of what they had taken, and
finding that the Republic was too beset to give much thought to art or
artists Titian left Venice for Padua. This must have been very shortly
after the completion of his work with Giorgione. His hand is to be seen
in the very pleasant and learned city of Padua among the frescoes in
the Scuola del Santo, and he may have been within its walls when the
plague, on one of its periodical visits to Venice, added his friend and
fellow-worker Giorgione to a heavy list of victims.
[Illustration: PLATE III.--THE ENTOMBMENT
(In the Louvre)
This world-famous canvas hangs in the Salon Carré of the Louvre. It is
considered to be one of the masterpieces among the religious subjects
painted by the great Venetian artist.]
On Titian's return to the headquarters of the Republic only Palma
Vecchio was left among the great men of his own age, and it would seem
that Titian's rising fame had already spread beyond the borders of
Venice, because in 1513, when he petitioned the Council of Ten for
a broker's patent to work in the Hall of the German Merchants, he
stated that he had been invited by the Pope (Leo X.) to come to Rome,
and that he wished to leave a memorial in Venice. It is clear from the
correspondence that he had an eye upon a post held by the aged Gian
Bellini. This was the office of painter in the Hall of the Great
Council, a coveted position for which Carpaccio, one of Bellini's less
distinguished pupils, is said to have been among the claimants.
Although Titian was a remarkable and rising man the Council hesitated
to grant his request, partly because times were bad with the State and
money was scarce. He was compelled to wait, and it would appear that
his application was opposed both by the friends of Bellini and the
supporters of Bellini's older pupils; but as soon as Bellini died,
towards the close of 1516, Titian came to his desire and undertook to
paint the great battle of Cadore in the Hall of the Great Council.
Having secured his patent, work increased, his brush was in request
in many quarters, and he did as so many other painters in the State
employment of Venice had done--he left his official work for such spare
time as more remunerative employment left him--to the great scandal of
the Councillors whose angry protests are on record. His early portraits
seem to have been of men; the women, in whose treatment he was perhaps
less happy, sought him in later life, and his other early commissions
were very largely for altar-pieces. Titian had powerful friends and
patrons at an early age, for we see that he had been recommended to the
Pope by Cardinal Bembo before he returned to Venice from Padua, and his
pictures attracted the attention of that splendid patron of art Alfonso
of Ferrara. This great connoisseur sent for and entertained him at his
castle, and even offered to take him to Rome when Leo X. died, and his
successor, after the fashion of Popes, would be likely to give some
liberal commissions to the greatest artists of his time. In return for
these kindnesses, and in consideration of a splendid fee, Titian
painted the great picture of Alfonso of Ferrara of which a copy is to
be seen in Florence. The original went to Madrid and has been lost. For
the same generous master he painted his "Bacchus and Ariadne," his
"Venus with the Shell," and a Bacchanal, and it is generally agreed
that he painted a part at least of the picture called "The Bacchanal,"
now in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland.
Several of the works painted in Ferrara were taken in later days to
Madrid, and it might be said in this place that it is almost as
necessary to go to the Prado to see the Titians as it is to see the
great works of Velazquez. "The Bacchanal" is there, and the "Worship
of Venus" is there, and we find many others of the first importance,
some two dozen, perhaps, whose authority is beyond dispute. This
collection in the Prado is the more valuable because it represents
Titian not only in the early days, but when he was at the zenith of his
powers. The pictures range in date over a period of nearly seventy
years, from the "Madonna with St. Bridget and St. Ulphus" (circa 1505)
down to the "Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto," which was sent to
Spain in 1575, a commission from Philip II. whose love for allegorical
pictures is well known. Charles V. and his son Philip II. are to be
seen in the Prado through the medium of Titian's brush, and, although
many of the works have suffered from restoration, which is one of the
vices associated with the great Spanish picture galleries, there are
several that show few signs of an alien brush and are, for pictures by
Titian, in first-class order.
Students of the Renaissance know that art was accepted by all the great
rulers of Europe as something lying outside the boundaries of ambition
and strife. It was one of the rewards of a great conqueror that he
could have his portrait painted by the first painter of his day, and
patriotism was kept outside the studio, to the great benefit of art and
rulers alike. Venice offended Spain in many ways, and even offended the
Church by laying a restraining hand upon the Holy Inquisition, but
Popes and Spanish kings were proud, nevertheless, to be numbered among
the patrons of the greatest artist of their time, they seemed to know
that his brush would do more than immortalise their progress--that it
would outlive it. The attention that Titian received from the Court of
Ferrara did much to develop the esteem in which Venice held him, and
Titian was requested to paint his famous "Assumption" for the great
Church of Santa Maria de' Frari. To-day no more than a copy hangs in
the church, the picture having been long ago transferred to the
Accademia. It is very properly regarded by the authorities as one
of the first very great pictures of Titian's life, marking as it does
the entrance of living interests into sacred painting. The bustle and
movement that earlier masters had not ventured to present are seen here
to the greatest advantage, and although there must have been many to
declare that its conception was wicked and irreligious and quite
outside the thought of such acknowledged masters as Beato Angelico and
Gian Bellini, it is likely that such criticism would have very little
effect upon Titian, because he went on painting altar-pieces without
reverting in any instance to the methods of his predecessors.
He painted a "Madonna" for the Church of St Nicholas, an "Assumption"
for Verona's Cathedral, an "Entombment of Christ," now in Paris, and it
could have surprised nobody when the Doge Andrea Gritti commissioned
the artist to decorate the Church of St. Nicholas in the Ducal Palace.
These frescoes have disappeared, but a picture by Titian preserves the
patron for us, and this is something to be grateful for, because the
head is full of interest. Titian continued to paint ecclesiastical
subjects until pressure from the world beyond forced him to turn his
brush to other purposes, and then he came under the patronage of
Frederic Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, son of that Isabella d'Este, who had
commissioned Titian's old master, Gian Bellini, to paint a secular
picture for her _camerino_ and was in the next few years to have her
own portrait painted by Bellini's young pupil. In addition to an
original picture he copied a portrait painted when she was young, and
doubtless he was sufficiently a courtier to paint it in fashion that
merited her approval and consoled her for having grown old.
The instinct for the fine arts had descended to Isabella's son, and
when Titian went to work in Mantua he painted pictures that extended
his European fame, because as the western world was situated in those
days Mantua had a word to say in its affairs, entertaining foreign
potentates and receiving foreign ambassadors. In those days, too,
ambassadors took note of art movements, knowing that in so doing they
were bound to please their masters; the political correspondence of the
times includes a very considerable amount of art gossip. It is certain
that Titian worked in Mantua for the Duke, and painted many pictures
including the "Eleven Cæsars," but unhappily the greater part of all
his labour is lost. Perhaps some canvases await the discerning critic
in half-forgotten gallery or lumber-rooms; it is not likely that all
have been destroyed.
[Illustration: PLATE IV.--THE HOLY FAMILY
(In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence)
Sometimes known as the Virgin with the Holy Child and Saints. Here
we find Titian dealing with a religious subject with the restraint,
dignity, and sense of beauty that proclaim him a master among painters.
The motherly love of the Virgin, the solicitude of St. Joseph on the
right, and the childish innocence of the two children are most
effectively expressed and contrasted. The picture may be seen in the
Uffizi Gallery.]
The next great Italian house with which Titian seems to have entered
into relations was that of Urbino whose Duke was nephew of that Pope
Julius II. who was known to his contemporaries as "the Terrible
Pontiff" because of his uncontrollable temper. He was the Pope who gave
Michelangelo the commission to paint the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.
This artist was at least as bad-tempered as the Terrible Pontiff and
the "I'm not a painter" with which he greeted the Pontiff's demand that
he should paint when he preferred to practise sculpture has echoed down
the ages. It is worth remembering that when the work was done, and
Pope Julius came to see the result, he suggested that the scaffolding
should be re-erected and the work decorated afresh with ultramarine and
gold-leaf! Although Pope Julius bought the "Apollo" and the "Laocoon,"
Michelangelo was his adviser, but his nephew Francesco Maria della
Rovere had sound instinct, and his connection with Titian lasted as
long as he lived.
In the early years of this connection Titian painted the Duke and
Duchess and the famous "Bella," which is reproduced in these pages and
is reckoned, in spite of repainting, to be one of the most notable
works from Titian's hand in this period of his career. Many portraits
painted for the Court of Urbino are mentioned by Vasari; we cannot find
any traces of them to-day. As one of them was of the Turkish Sultan,
and it is not on record that Titian ever went to Turkey, it is
reasonable to suppose that some at least of these pictures were copies
of portraits that other men had painted. It was the custom for foreign
potentates to have their portrait painted by the best man in their own
capital and then to send the portrait to be copied by some artist of
world-wide repute.
In the Uffizi Gallery in Florence there are portraits of the Duke of
Urbino (which are signed) and his Duchess; they were kept at Urbino
until the early part of the seventeenth century, and were then brought
to their present resting-place. The picture of the Duke is a very
striking one. He had made a great reputation in fighting against the
Turks, and the emblems of his high office are seen in the picture. The
Duchess is painted in repose; like so many of Titian's portraits of
women this one has a rather listless expression. When the Duke died his
son Guidobaldo continued relations with the painter, who painted the
Duchess Julia just before her death. It seems likely that she never
saw the picture, which is now in the Pitti at Florence. The portrait of
the husband is lost.
II
MIDDLE AGE
This brief and rather hurried review of Titian's life and work has
brought us to his middle age and we find him now almost at the zenith
of his fame, though his powers have not yet reached their ripest and
fullest expression. Venice, Mantua, and Urbino have acknowledged his
talent, while if Pope and Sultan have not actually sat to him for their
portraits they have sent him other men's work to copy. The great
Charles V., who seemed bent upon holding all western and central Europe
in the hollow of his hand, was his friend and patron, and we see what
manner of man he was from the pictures in the Prado. The first, painted
in the very early years of their acquaintance, shows Charles with a
great hound by his side. His right hand rests on his dagger, his left
on the dog's collar, he wears the chain of the Golden Fleece, and seems
a man born to command. Belonging, of course, to a much later date is
the other portrait of Charles at the Battle of Mühlburg, perhaps even
less a monument of Titian's skill than an enduring record of the
terrible craze for repainting that beset Spain until recent years, and
is not unknown to-day, though public opinion has had some effect even
in Madrid. It is not generally known that there is a Spanish official
who has a salaried engagement to assist the old masters whose work
shows signs of fading, and without wishing to be hypercritical it is
reasonable to remark that these officials in a laudable anxiety to
earn their stipend have done irreparable damage to much work that
they were not fit to approach.
[Illustration: PLATE V.--THE MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHERINE
(In the Pitti Palace, Florence)
This fine work is in the Pitti Palace, and is a triumph of harmony in
colour and lines. The drawing of the arms of the Infant Christ is the
one point that may be said to justify hostile criticism in a work of
extraordinary beauty. A somewhat similar picture is in the National
Gallery.]
In spite of the imminence of the political scheme that occupied the
mind of Charles V. he was able to spare time to consider the affairs of
art, and his attitude towards Titian seems to have been that of one
friend towards another rather than that of an emperor towards a foreign
painter. It is interesting in this connection to remember that his son
Philip II., who succeeded to the throne of Spain, was a patron of the
arts, that Philip III. was not indifferent to them, that Philip IV. was
the friend as well as the patron of Velazquez, and that Velazquez
admired Titian above all the other Venetians, and is said to have
copied many of his pictures.
Charles proceeded to put the crown upon Titian's reputation by sending
him in 1533 a patent of nobility, and making him a Knight of the Order
of the Golden Spur. Among the stories that receive a sort of sanction
from age is one to the effect that Charles V. once picked up a brush
that Titian had dropped, and said to his astonished courtiers that such
a man was worthy of having an emperor to serve him. Stories of this
kind seem to flourish in Spain. Students of the life of Velazquez will
not forget the legend that Philip IV. painted the cross of St. Iago
upon the painter's cloak when he saw the famous picture "Las Meniñas,"
in order to give the most fitting expression of his admiration. This
story contrasts strangely with the true facts of the case. Charles went
even further than to give the patent of nobility to Titian, he made a
determined effort to persuade him to live in Madrid altogether. Very
wisely Titian refused the offers; he was a Venetian at heart, and a
free man. To be a citizen of Venice was an honour for which even a
Charles V. could hardly find an effective substitute.
There is no reason to believe that Titian would have fared any better
in the wind-swept, heat-stricken capital of Spain than Velazquez fared
in the years that brought Philip IV. to the throne. At the splendid
court of Charles V. Titian would soon have become a mere official
painter, he would have been compelled to paint to order and endure the
snubs and buffets of the blue-blooded, but uncultivated courtiers
attached to the royal establishment. Moreover, the Venetians did not
like Spanish methods of dealing with matters of art and faith; to
Titian their attitude would have appeared intolerable.
Although he was a painter, Titian had little of the temperament that is
generally associated with artists. His genius was allied to sound
commercial instincts, and he chose for intimates and advisers men whose
practical experience of the world and of affairs was at least as great
as his own, in some cases even greater. Of these Pietro Aretino, father
of modern journalists, was one of the most sagacious and quite the most
remarkable. His voluminous letters tell us a great deal about Titian to
whom he played the part of mentor, and they reveal the writer as a man
of great shrewdness who moved in the highest circles in many cities,
living largely by his wits, and wielding a pen that was often sharper
than a sword and was certainly more feared. He found Titian as valuable
to him as he was useful to Titian, and, when any delicate negotiations
were to the fore Aretino's large circle of friends and patrons, his
ready tongue and fluent pen were at the service of the painter. His
portrait painted by Titian was till recently in Rome and reveals a man
with massive head, sagacious expression, and a curious likeness to Dr.
Hans Richter the famous musician. His letters are still read with
interest by those who like to look back over the course of life in the
sixteenth century.
At a time when he had passed middle age, Titian would seem to have
exhausted for the moment the possibilities of Venice. We have seen that
the Fathers of the City had been a little vexed with his delay in
painting the "Battle of Cadore" in the Hall of the Grand Council. He
had received a State allowance in order to enable him to paint it, and
twenty years had not sufficed him for the completion of the commission.
When he was threatened with the loss of his money and dignities by the
indignant Councillors, whose patience at the end of two decades was
quite stale, he did set to work, and satisfied them that the picture
was worth the waiting. But they could hardly have been inclined to
extend much more patronage to a man who allowed the rulers of other
States to turn his attention from commissioned work, and never
hesitated to leave it for years at a time when other and more
remunerative orders came to hand. Moreover the great churches were
fairly well filled, and the smaller ones could hardly afford to employ
the greatest master of the day. So Pietro Aretino, perhaps casting
about to do his friend a good turn, bethought him of his influence in
Rome, and addressed certain letters to the leading lights of Mother
Church who were to be found there. These letters were doubtless
supervised by Titian himself, because they bear a striking likeness in
phraseology to the petition the painter had addressed to the Council of
Ten in the days when he was little known, and Gian Bellini was still
working for the State. Then, it will be remembered, the painter
declared that he had been asked to go to Rome but preferred to stay in
Venice; now Aretino told the Romans that Titian had been invited to go
to Madrid but preferred to work in Rome. So it happened early in the
'forties that, through the useful Aretino, Titian entered into
relations with the Farnese family, who were represented in the Papal
Chair by Pope Paul III. The result was that Titian was invited to
Ferrara, where he met the Pope and painted his portrait.
The whole correspondence, so far as it can be seen, would seem to
suggest that Titian and Aretino managed this business exceedingly well.
When the painter found that his ambition was within measurable distance
of being gratified, and that his graceless elder son for whom he had
entered a special plea, was to receive a benefice, he seems to have
remembered that Venice held many attractions for him, and that he could
not leave it in a hurry. Not until the close of 1545 did he visit the
Eternal City, only to regret that the greater part of his life had been
passed outside its walls.
As soon as he was established in Rome, Titian found himself received by
princes and prelates in fashion befitting his age and reputation. And
Giorgio Vasari, the author of the great work on Italian artists, was
commissioned, by one of the heads of the house of Farnese, to show the
painter the wonders of the city.
[Illustration: PLATE VI.--FLORA
(In the Uffizi Gallery, Florence)
The famous Flora of Titian's reproduced here is in the Uffizi Gallery
and was painted somewhere about 1515. In the seventeenth century it was
engraved by one of the greatest engravers of the day, Sandrart. The
picture was publicly exhibited in Florence towards the stormy close of
the eighteenth century, and although people in those years had small
leisure to concern themselves about works of art, it created a great
sensation.]
To the Farnese family Titian's visit was of the first importance
because its Pope and Cardinal were his first patrons, and he painted
many pictures for them. Paul III. was no more than ten years older than
the painter and had not long to live. He sat to Titian several
times; two of the portraits are to be seen in Naples and there are
others to be seen elsewhere. In addition to the fine memorials of the
Farnese Pope, Naples holds several of Titian's masterpieces, including
the splendid "Danäe," a "Philip II.," and a "Mary Magdalen." Those who
are fortunate enough to obtain access to the really remarkable
collection of pictures at Naples will not forget readily the striking
portraits of the old Pope.
Titian stayed less than a year in the Eternal City in spite of the
preparations he had made before undertaking the journey, and then
returned to Venice with many honours, but without the long desired post
for his son. Perhaps his departure gave offence to people in high
places, perhaps his stay there had not been altogether as satisfactory
as he had expected it to be, for despite flattering offers, despite the
honour of Roman citizenship conferred upon him before he went home, he
refused to return. He might have gone in the end in consideration of
the preferment granted to Pomponio Vecelli his scapegrace son, but
Charles V. sent for him, and he went instead to Augsburg, where the
Emperor who had seen the fulfilment of so many of his hopes was living
in great state, surrounded by as brilliant a court as the sixteenth
century knew. In Augsburg Titian painted his most famous portrait of
Charles V., the one showing the Emperor on horseback, which as has been
stated, is to be seen to-day in the Prado in Madrid.
Titian remained in Augsburg for the greater part of a year before he
returned to Venice, to find his studio, or work-shop as it would have
been called in those days besieged by the envoys of the various
European rulers who were all clamouring for portraits. From Venice the
painter went to Milan at the invitation of Prince Philip of Spain
(afterwards Philip II.) and at the close of 1550 he was back in
Augsburg where he painted several portraits of Prince Philip of which
perhaps the best is in the Prado. By the time he returned to Venice he
would have been in the immediate neighbourhood of his eightieth year.
His brush was never idle, and if the fruit of his labours could have
been preserved in fire-proof galleries the gain to the world would have
been enormous. Unfortunately we have to face the unpleasant truth that
considerably more than half his life work has been lost.
III
THE LAST DECADES
Titian's last work for Charles V. was the famous "Gloria." This was
painted at a time when Charles had decided to end his days in the
shadow of the Church, and is to be seen to-day in the Prado, a
composition of amazing strength and wonderful inspiration. The Father
and the Son are seen enthroned, with the Virgin Mary at the feet of
Christ, and the Patriarchs grouped in the background. Charles himself
in his shroud is pleading for forgiveness, an angel by his side
encourages him and supports his appeal. The lighting of the picture is
masterly, and so impressed the Emperor that he took it with him into
retirement, and directed that it should be placed above his tomb.
Philip II. has no enviable reputation in this country, but his position
as patron of the arts stands far above criticism. Though he was a sober
ascetic upon whom the authority of the Church weighed very heavily, he
did not ask Titian to devote himself entirely to religious pictures.
In matters of art he saw his way to making a considerable concession
to the spirit of the Renaissance, and when he took over the burden
of empire he commissioned several mythological subjects from the old
painter. Among them were the "Venus and Adonis" now in the Prado, the
"Diana surprised by Actaeon" in Bridge-water House, and the "Jupiter
and Antiope" in the Louvre. The allegorical pictures, the latest work
of the painter's life, were commissioned later.
Strangely enough the years had done little or nothing to dim the lustre
of the painter's work, his colour was still supremely beautiful, his
feeling for landscape more intense than it had ever been, while his
capacity for striking and novel composition remained a thing to wonder
at. Of course Philip was not content with secular subjects, and Titian
was required to paint a certain number of pictures for the Escorial,
but he is best represented by his mythological subjects. Perhaps they
made a more direct appeal to him because by their side the religious
pictures were a little old-fashioned, and he does not seem to have
faced allegorical subjects with enthusiasm.
It is interesting to turn to Vasari and read some of the things he has
to say about the painter at this period of his life, for although the
old chronicler is not the most accurate of writers, he is at least a
very interesting one and he knew Titian intimately. He says of the
famous "Gloria" picture to which reference has been made--"The
composition of this work was in accordance with the orders of his
Majesty, who was then giving evidence of his intention to retire, as he
afterwards did, from mundane affairs, to the end that he might die in
the manner of a true Christian, fearing God and labouring for his own
salvation." It is not difficult to imagine the emotion that this
picture must have roused among those who were privileged to see it,
when it came fresh from the painter's studio, to impress an age that
had not forgotten to be devout.
Again Vasari says, "In the year 1566 when I, the writer of the present
history, was in Venice, I went to visit Titian as one who was his
friend, and found him, although then very old, still with the pencils
in his hand painting busily." The old gossip goes on to say that Paris
Bordone, who "had studied grammar and become an excellent musician,"
had set himself to imitate Titian, who did not love him on that
account, and had sought to keep him from getting commissions. Bordone
persevered and went to Augsburg, where he painted pictures, now lost,
for some of the great German merchants. This little glimpse of rivalry
suggests to us that Titian was jealous of his reputation, although
Vasari tells us elsewhere that he was kind and considerate to his
contemporaries, and free from uneasiness, because he had gained a fair
amount of wealth, his labours having always been well paid. Vasari
hints, too, that he kept his brush in hand too long; he must have
written this when he remembered that, for all his many excellences,
Titian was a Venetian. "Titian has always been healthy and happy," he
writes; "he has been favoured beyond the lot of most men, and has
received from Heaven only favours and blessings. In his house he
has always been visited by whatever princes, literati, or men of
distinction have gone to Venice, for in addition to his excellence in
art he has always distinguished himself by courtesy, goodness, and
rectitude." Perhaps his remark that Titian's reputation would have
stood higher if he had finished work earlier may be no more than a
veiled comment upon the indiscriminate misuse of the labours of pupils.
[Illustration: PLATE VII.--SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
(In the Borghese Palace, Rome)
This most beautiful work of Titian's is one belonging to his early
days. It was probably commissioned in 1512 by the Chancellor of Venice,
and we find that it was in the possession of Cardinal Scipione Borghese
at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It may be seen to-day in
the Borghese Palace of Rome.]
In the latter years of his sojourn in Venice the artist lived in a
house towards Murano, between the Church of San Giovanni de Paolo and
the Church of the Jesuits. He entertained very largely, giving supper
parties from which no seasonable delicacy was lacking, and gathering
round him distinguished men and women who were far less celebrated for
their morals than for their attractions. His gossip Aretino was
generally of the party, and it is to him that we owe so much of our
intimate knowledge of the painter's home life and troubles. Aretino's
death in 1556 must have been a great blow to Titian.
Vasari tells us that the painter's income was considerable. Charles V.
paid a thousand gold crowns for every portrait of himself and, when he
conferred the patent of nobility upon the painter, he accompanied it
with an annual gift of two hundred crowns. Philip II., son of the great
Emperor, added another two hundred annually, the German merchants gave
him three hundred, so that he had seven hundred crowns a year without
taking into account the commissions that came to him on every side,
and, as he was painting for the richest and most generous people of his
generation, his annual income must have been very considerable. And yet
Titian's own correspondence, of which a part has been preserved, shows
that the State grants were not always paid regularly. It is of course
far more easy for an arbitrary ruler to make gifts to his favourites
than it is for the State Treasury to respond to the demands that must
needs follow each grant, and Spanish finances have always been
difficult to administer.
As he grew older and his hand lost part at least of its cunning, Titian
depended more and more upon pupils, but in this he was only following
the custom of his time. It is said that a clever German artist, who
worked in his studio, was responsible for the greater part of several
of the later pictures. The Council of Ten though they had taken from
him the office of Painter of Doges and had given it to Tintoretto,
offered him a commission in the late 'sixties; even if they had a
grievance against him they could not afford to nourish it. Then again
if Titian was not always prompt in doing the work for which he was
paid, even if he employed pupils to a greater extent than seemed
necessary to those who had to pay for the finished canvas, it must have
been hard to quarrel with him, for his personality would seem to have
been most engaging. He was an excellent musician as well as a good
host, Paolo Veronese has included him in the famous "Marriage in Cana"
(Louvre) playing a double bass. Moreover Titian was a courtier whose
correspondence, although it dealt so largely with matter of finance,
lacks none of the stilted graces of the time, and these may have helped
to conciliate angry patrons. He seems to have been an affectionate
father, and if he had any besetting sin it was love of money, his
anxiety in this respect being increased by the fact that he was not
always able to collect the accounts due to him. Yet he saved enough to
buy land round his birthplace and it is reported that he went to Cadore
whenever he had the opportunity. Clearly an appreciative sense of the
perennial peace of the Dolomites never left him.
By his wife, to whom he was not married until two sons had been born,
Titian had four children of whom two grew up. Pomponio, to whom we
have referred, was the eldest; and he came to a bad end, being a
dissipated man. Orazio, who was the second son, became a painter. One
daughter died young, and there was another, Lavinia, portraits of whom
may be seen at Dresden and Berlin. His great friends were Pietro
Aretino, poet and gossip, who laid half Europe under contribution, and
was almost as unscrupulous as he was clever, and the sculptor
Sansovino.
Whatever Titian's faults were as a man, they may fairly be forgotten in
his merits as an artist, and it is not the least of these merits that
he worked from the time when he was a boy to the hour when his brush
seemed falling from his hands, unsparing in his devotion to his task.
He has left a legacy to the civilised world that compels a measure of
admiration equal to that which is paid to Velazquez. Titian was the
supreme master of colour, but, unfortunately, few of his pictures have
escaped the restorer's hand, and a great many have been damaged in
their journeys from city to city in an age when the art of picture
packing was still unknown. Exposure to all sorts of weather, long
periods of neglect, careless restoration, and reckless repainting would
have been enough to destroy the reputation of most painters, but
Titian's work has not suffered to the extent that might have been
expected. Enough remains of the master to make us not a little envious
of the happy patrons of the arts who knew his work in all its glory.
It is hard to say when Titian's life would have come to an end in the
ordinary course of events, but it is not unreasonable to suppose that
he would have lived to be a centenarian had he retired from Venice
when he was ninety and gone to live in Pieve, the well-beloved city
that gave him birth. But he would not leave his workshop, and in 1575
the plague paid another visit to Venice. It will be remembered that
soon after the League of Cambrai when Titian was in Padua, a visitation
had devastated Venice and carried off Giorgione among thousands of
lesser men. The Venetians were never free from fear of the plague's
return. In 1575 the hand of the plague lay heavy upon the City of
Lagoons, where sanitation was unknown, and isolation and disinfection
were not practised properly. Historians tell us that some 40,000 people
perished, the greatest panic prevailed, and while the plague was at its
height Titian died. If his own insinuation of the year of his birth be
correct he must have been in his ninety-ninth year, but even if we
accept the date given by those who believe that he was born as late as
1482, he would have been within seven years of his centenary. The
epidemic is recorded in the famous Church of the Redentore on the
Giudecca, dedicated to Christ by the Doge Mocenigo, whose portrait
painted by Tintoretto may be seen in the Accademia to-day.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--THE HOLY FAMILY
(In the National Gallery, London)
This superb painting is one of the gems of our National Gallery, and
represents Titian at his best as a great colourist. It is painted in
oil on canvas.]
In spite of the distress prevailing in the city some effort was made
to give the great painter a State funeral, but under the conditions
existing, it was impossible to carry out the programme, and he was
buried with comparatively little ceremony in the great Church of the
Frari which, in addition to having one of the finest works of his hand,
is further enriched by the famous altar-piece by his old master Gian
Bellini. They say that his residence was entered shortly after his
death by some of the riff-raff of Venice, to whom the plague had given
a welcome measure of licence, and was despoiled of many of its
treasures. Doubtless the painter's house held much that was worth the
small risk involved in an hour when the authorities were hardly able to
cope with duties to the sick and the disposal of the dead.
In considering the life of Titian we see that much good-fortune went to
its making. He was born at the best period of the Renaissance, he was
the inheritor of the freedom for which other painters had striven. He
painted a world that was as new to artists as were the far-off realms
to the Spanish adventurers who were discovering new countries and new
trade routes, and paving the way for the ultimate decline of Venice. At
the outset of his career Titian's work was full of the joy of life,
it was the expression of an age that seemed to have come of age, of a
city that had turned to canvas and marble rather than to books for a
reflection of the new life. While the painter progressed, overcoming
the various difficulties of expression that confronted him, making
daring and successful experiments in composition, handling colour as it
had never been handled before, this feeling of enthusiasm that belonged
to the age was expressed in all his work. Then again he had the great
advantage of claiming for sitters the most distinguished men of his
time, the statesmen and rulers who were making history at the expense
of the map of Europe, the men who held spiritual or temporal power, and
the women they delighted to honour. Naturally enough these conditions
gave added scope to the painter's talent; and his subjects were worthy
of his brush. He could seek out what was best and most characteristic
in his sitters, and express through the medium of his art not only the
likeness but the personality underlying it. Had his work been more
fortunate, had it been preserved in anything like its entirety, we
should be able to read the history of his times in a clearer light, for
though the written word can tell us much, the cleverly wrought picture
has still more to say, and we can rely upon canvas, if Titian painted
it, to refute or to confirm the verdict of the historian.
Happily, too, Titian's art grew with his age. Practice and experience
ripened it, and some of his finest pictures were painted when he was
past the span of life that the Psalmist has allotted to man. He covered
every field, no form of painting seems to have come amiss to him.
Altar-pieces, portraits, historical pictures, mythological and
allegorical subjects, one and all claimed his attention from time to
time, and though we are all entitled to express our preference, there
will be few to say that he failed in any style of work. Perhaps he was
least successful in allegorical subjects, and in the portraits of
women, but, if this be so, his failure is merely relative, he attained
such heights in mythological subjects and men's portraits, that the
other work is not so good by comparison. If he gave us no picture
devoted entirely to landscape it is worth remarking that the appeal
of nature was an ever growing one. The impression given him by the
mountains round Cadore was never lost. From the time when he completed
Gian Bellini's last picture down to the time when the plague came to
Venice and found him with an unfinished picture on his easel, the
attraction of the countryside he knew so well was always with him, and
he lost no opportunity of expressing it. Gian Bellini had opened the
walls that shut in the Madonna and the Saints of the earlier masters,
he had given the world glimpses of exquisite landscape through which
the romance woven round his figures seemed to spread. Titian opened the
gates still further, giving a larger, wider, and more splendid view,
convincing his contemporaries and successors that landscape could never
more be overlooked.
He would seem to have made few studies, a sketch by Titian is one of
the rarest things in art, he did not see in line but in colour. With
Titian as with Velazquez after him it is hard to separate colour from
line, and in colour he was the acknowledged master of his own time and
the guide of the ages after him. Some of his great contemporaries, not
Venetians of course, declared that Titian was a poor draughtsman, but
it is well to remember that among the Venetians, art was an affair of
painting, among the Florentines it embraced sculpture and architecture;
the mere handling of paint, however splendid the results, would not
suffice Florentine ambitions. It might even be said that much
Florentine painting is little more than tinted drawing. We go to Titian
for colour even to-day, when time and exposure and repainting have
taken so much from the wealth that he gave to his pictures, and we can
see that as he grew to ripe age he sought to obtain his colour effects
by less obvious means than those that served him at the outset. It is
hard for any but an artist to realise the secret of the cause that
produced the later results, but, if it be left for the artist to
explain it is easy for the layman to appreciate. With Titian, Venetian
painting reached the zenith of its achievement, after him through
Tintoretto and Veronese, the descent is slow but sure, and we are left
wondering whether any fresh revival of the world's enthusiasm, any new
discovery of the world's youth is destined to bring into art the
spirit of enthusiasm that gave a Titian to the world. There are few
signs in our own time, but then we do not live in an age of great
crises religious or political, or, if we do, we are too near to the
changes to recognise them.
Perhaps there are some who find amusement in the suggestion that
Titian's action emancipating art from the thraldom of the Church was a
great and glorious one, not unattended by danger and difficulties. To
these sceptics one can but reply by quoting the decree of the Council
of Nicaea dated A.D. 787 and never repealed. Here we find the attitude
of Authority towards art set out in plainest fashion. "It is not the
invention of the painter which creates a picture," says this remarkable
decree, "but the inviolable law and tradition of the Church. It is not
the painter but the Holy Fathers who have to invent and dictate. To
them manifestly belongs the composition, to the painter only the
execution."
A few great artists in later times had made their protest, definite or
indefinite, against the attitude of the Church, but Titian rescued art
as Perseus rescued Andromeda.
The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London
The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh
Transcriber's note:
Italics is represented with underscore _ and small caps with ALL CAPS.
Illustrations were moved to paragraph breaks, everything else
(including inconsistent hyphenation and spelling) has been retained as
printed.
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