Titian. Sir Claude Phillips
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flesh is so finely set off by the white of fluttering, half-transparent draperies. The canvas has exquisite colour, almost without colours; the only tint of any very defined character being the dark red of the Magdalene’s robe. Yet a certain affectation, a certain exaggeration of fluttering movement and strained attitude repel the beholder a little at first, and neutralise for him the rare beauties of the canvas. It is as if a wave of some strange transient influence passed over Titian at this moment, then to be dissipated.
But to turn now once more to the series of our master’s Holy Families and Sacred Conversations which began with La Zingarella, and was continued with the Virgin and Child with Saints Dorothy and George of Madrid. The most popular of all those belonging to this early period is the Virgin with the Cherries in the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Here the painter is already completely himself. He will go much farther in breadth if not in polish, in transparency, in forcefulness, if not in attractiveness of colour; but he is now, in sacred art at any rate, practically free from outside influences. From the pensive girl-Madonna of Giorgione we now have the radiant young matron of Titian, joyous yet calm in her play with the infant Christ, while the Madonna of his master and friend was unrestful and full of tender foreboding even in seeming repose. Pretty close behind this must have followed the Virgin and Child with Saint Stephen, Saint Jerome and Saint Maurice in the Louvre, in which the rich harmonies of colour strike a somewhat deeper note. An atelier repetition of this fine original is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum; the only material variation traceable in this last-named example being that in lieu of Saint Ambrose, wearing a kind of biretta, we have Saint Jerome bareheaded.
Very near in time and style to this particular series, with which it may safely be grouped, is the beautiful and finely preserved Holy Family, erroneously attributed to Palma Vecchio. Deep glowing richness of colour and smooth perfection without slightness of finish make this picture remarkable, notwithstanding its lack of any deeper significance. Nor must there be forgotten in an enumeration of the early Holy Families, one of the loveliest of all, the Virgin and Child with a Young Saint John the Baptist and Saint Anthony the Abbot, which adorns the Venetian section of the Uffizi Gallery. Here the relationship with Giorgione is more clearly shown than in any of these Holy Families of the first period, and in so far as the painting, which cannot be placed very early among them, constitutes a partial exception in the series. The Virgin is of a more refined and pensive type than in the Virgin and Child with Saint Stephen, Saint Jerome and Saint Maurice in the Louvre, and the divine Child less robust in build and aspect. The magnificent Saint Anthony is quite Giorgionesque in the serenity tinged with sadness of his contemplative mood.
Last of all in this particular group – another work in respect of which Morelli has played the rescuer – is the Mary and Child with Four Saints in the Dresden Gallery. This is a much-injured but eminently Titianesque work, which may be said to bring this particular series to within a couple of years or so of the Assunta, that great landmark of the first period of maturity. The type of the Madonna here is still very similar to that in the Virgin with the Cherries.
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Polyptych of the Resurrection (Polyptych Averoldi), 1520–1522.
Oil on wood panel, centre panel: 278 × 122 cm; upper side panels each: 79 × 65 cm; lower side panels each: 170 × 65 cm. Santi Nazaro e Celso, Brescia.
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Tobias and the Angel, c. 1512.
Oil on wood, 170 × 146 cm. Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.
Apart from all these sacred works, and in every respect an exceptional production, is the world-famous Tribute-Money of the Dresden Gallery. The date of this presumed early work of Titian is problematic. For once agreeing with Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Morelli is inclined to disregard the testimony of Vasari, from whose text we might infer that it was painted in or after the year 1514, and to place it as far back as 1508. Notwithstanding this weight of authority, the writer is strongly inclined, following Vasari in this instance, and trusting to certain indications furnished by the picture itself, to return to the date 1514 or thereabouts. There is no valid reason to doubt that The Tribute-Money was painted for Alfonso I of Ferrara, seeing that it so aptly illustrates the already quoted legend on his coins: Quod est Caesaris Caesari, quod est Dei Deo. According to Vasari, it was painted nella porta d’un armario – that is to say, in the door of a press or wardrobe. But this statement need not be taken in its most literal sense. If it were to be assumed from this passage that the picture was painted on the spot, its date must be advanced to 1516, since Titian did not pay his first visit to Ferrara before that year. There are no sufficient grounds, however, for assuming that he did not execute his wonderful panel in the usual fashion – that is to say, at home in Venice. The last finishing touches might, perhaps, have been given to it in situ, as they were to Bellini’s Bacchanal, also done for the Duke of Ferrara. The extraordinary finish of the painting, which is hardly to be paralleled in the life work of the artist, may have been due to his desire to “show his hand” to his new patron in a subject which touched him so closely. And then the finish is not of the quattrocento type, not such as we find, for instance, in the Leonardo Loredano of Giovanni Bellini, the finest panels of Cima, or the early Christ bearing the Cross of Giorgione. In it the exquisite polish of surface and consummate rendering of detail are combined with the utmost breadth and majesty of composition, with a now perfect freedom in the casting of the draperies. It is difficult, indeed, to imagine that this masterpiece – so eminently a work of the cinquecento and one, too, in which the master of Cadore rose superior to all influences, even to that of Giorgione – could have been painted in 1508. That would be some two years before Bellini’s Baptism of Christ in Santa Corona, and in all probability before the Three Philosophers of Giorgione himself. It appears to have most in common with Titian’s own early picture Saint Mark of the Salute – not so much in technique, indeed, as in general style – though it is very much less Giorgionesque. To praise the Tribute Money anew after it has been so incomparably well praised seems almost an impertinence. The soft radiance of the colour matches so well the tempered majesty, the infinite gentleness of the conception; the spirituality, which is of the essence of the august subject, is so happily expressed, without any sensible diminution of the splendour of Renaissance art approaching its highest point. And yet nothing could be simpler than the scheme of colour as compared with the complex harmonies which Venetian art in a somewhat later phase affected. Frank contrasts are established between the tender, glowing flesh of the Christ, seen in all the glory of manhood, and the coarse, brown skin of the son of the people who appears as the Pharisee; between the bright yet tempered red of Christ’s robe and the deep blue of his mantle. But the golden glow, which is Titian’s own, envelops the contrasting figures and the contrasting hues in its harmonising atmosphere, and gives unity to the whole.[25]
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), The Miracle of the Jealous Husband, 1511.
Fresco, 340 × 185 cm. Scuola del Santo, Padua.
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Saint Anthony heals the Leg of a Youth, 1511.
Fresco, 340 × 207 cm. Scuola del Santo, Padua.
A small group of early portraits – all of them somewhat difficult to place – call for attention before we proceed. Probably the earliest portrait among those as yet recognised as from the hand of our painter – leaving out of the question the Baffo and the portrait-figures in the great Saint Mark of the Salute – is the magnificent Ariosto (also known as The Man with the Quilted Sleeve) in the National Gallery of London. There is very considerable doubt, to say the least, as to whether this half-length really represents the court poet of Ferrara, but the point requires more elaborate discussion than can be here conceded to it. The soberly tinted yet sumptuous picture is thoroughly Giorgionesque in its general arrangement and general tone, and in this respect it is the fitting companion and the descendant of Giorgione’s Antonio Broccardo at Budapest and his Knight of
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