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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 4
Lesson 9: Venice- Greek painters in renaissance Venice
- The Renaissance Synagogues of Venice
- Giorgione, The Tempest
- Giorgione, The Tempest
- Giorgione, Three Philosophers
- Giorgione, the Adoration of the Shepherds
- Bellini and Titian, the Feast of the Gods
- Titian, Pastoral Concert
- Titian, Noli me Tangere
- Titian, Assumption of the Virgin
- Titian, Madonna of the Pesaro Family
- Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne
- Titian, Isabella d’Este (Isabella in Black)
- Titian, two portraits of Pietro Aretino
- Titian, Venus of Urbino
- Titian, Venus of Urbino
- Titian's Venus of Urbino
- Titian, Christ Crowned with Thorns
- Titian, Pieta
- Correggio, Jupiter and Io
- Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin
- Veronese, The Family of Darius Before Alexander
- Veronese, the Dream of Saint Helena
- Paolo Veronese. Feast in the House of Levi
- Transcript of the trial of Veronese
- Tintoretto, the Miracle of the Slave
- Tintoretto, The Finding of the Body of Saint Mark
- Tintoretto, the Origin of the Milky Way
- Tintoretto, Last Supper
- Palladio, La Rotonda
- Palladio, Teatro Olimpico
- The Renaissance in Venice in the 1500s
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Titian, Assumption of the Virgin
Titian, Assumption of the Virgin, c. 1516-18, oil on wood, 22' 6" x 11' 10" (Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice) Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker & Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Why did cherubs fall out of fashion in more modern religious works similar to this one?(9 votes)
- Over the centuries artists drew more from the natural world than from the miraculous. While in earlier centuries depictions of miracles and divinity were very prevalent, over time they became more and more subtle. Rather than a golden halo you would just see a bare line around the head, for instance. Nature as an expression of the divine, rather than a supernal figure.(8 votes)
- Were paintings like this painted IN the church, or were they painted elsewhere and then moved to the church?(9 votes)
- Both could occur, but paintings like this were generally painted in the artists residence or studio, where he and his assistants could work unimpeded by the day to day activities of the clergy and worshipers.(4 votes)
- Mary isn't in her classic deep blue made from lapis lazuli? Why is she in red?(3 votes)
- "[Red] is (...) the color of the Roman Catholic Church. Stevens notes that red was a color often associated with divinity; medieval and renaissance paintings show Jesus and the Virgin Mary in red robes." Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7366503 Besides that I think it is not completely uncommon for Mary to be depicted in other colors too. Besides blue dresses I've seen her garbed in white (immaculate conception reference?) and red frequently (more royal?).(3 votes)
- is this painting a reference to Catholics or another section of religion?(1 vote)
- This is closely tied to the Catholic doctrine of appealing to the virgin Mary to intercede with God and Jesus on behalf of the supplicant. Most other Christian denominations do not place as much emphasis on saints and Mary's intercession as Catholicism does.(5 votes)
- Was work like this stolen often? It seems like you never hear about stolen artwork.(1 vote)
- This is a very large painting. It would be difficult to move, let alone steal.(4 votes)
- Is he one of the first people to use perspective?(2 votes)
- No: one of the first people was, for example, Masaccio, who painted one hundred years before Titian.(2 votes)
- Were artworks such as this, given their grandeur, an inspiration for the later Baroque period?(1 vote)
- Why is everybody naked in the older paintings? Is it a symbol of something?(1 vote)
- I'm interested in the evolution of the altar piece as a type. I can't recall any artworks where the space is so clearly divided in two parts: earthly and heavenly. Are we talking here about Titian inventing a new type of altarpiece?(1 vote)
Video transcript
(piano playing) Beth: We're in the church of
Santa Maria dei Frari in Venice looking at the giant altar piece by
Titian of the Assumption of the Virgin. Steven: It's 23 feet
tall, it's a big painting. Beth: So that means that the
figures at the bottom, the apostles, who gesture up toward
Mary are over life size. Steven: There's a frenetic
quality to those apostles. We don't even see the figure
on the right in red's face, but he reaches up creating this
wonderful entrance place for our eye, as he reaches up to Mary so
our eye reaches up to Mary. She has her arms open in exition
of prayer but also of acceptance to God the Father above her, whose
arms are even more outstretched as he receives her in Heaven. That's precisely what the
subject of the Assumption is. It is her moving from the
physical world at her death and being assumed into Heaven. Beth: And you get the sense
of the earthbound figures wanting to lift against
the force of gravity and move with her up to Heaven. Steven: There's an interesting
play of scale here. As we look up to God, who is even
further away, the scale doesn't change so he is even more massive
and expands across the sky. Beth: And the Virgin Mary
looks somewhat foreshortened. We're looking at her from below
and Mary is encircled by a halo of golden light and surrounding
that are figures of angels supporting her on clouds. It is like a burst of spiritual
golden light that emerges from the alter of this church and it's surrounded by Gothic windows. So this circle of light is framed
by yet another circle of real light. Steven: There's a wonderful
way that Titian has taken a straight on composition, remember this
is over the high altar in the church, it is completely central. When you walk in you look
straight down the nave, right at this massive painting
and because it is so large, because you look at it so
directly, it could become somewhat a symmetrical structure but
what the artist has done instead is to create asymmetry even
in the freeze of figures below because they gesticulated
so many varied ways. And Mary is a series of
soft arcs and diagonals. Look at the way the shadow of her
drape moves around her left arm and then moves diagonally
across the front of her body becoming a diagonal that offsets
the centrality of this image. Beth: When you walk into the church you
look directly at it, down at the nave. And in addition it's framed by a choir
screen that has an arched opening, and so your gaze is directed
toward this painting, especially difficult to experience
this painting and the other painting that Titian made for this church, the
Pesaro Madonna, in the reproduction. These are paintings that
need to be seen in situ. Steven: They need to overwhelm
you, from their scale, from the richness of their color
and from the complexity of, not only their theological programs
but also their compositions. (piano playing)