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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, Pieta
Titian and Palma il Giovane, Pietà, c. 1570-76, oil on canvas, 11'6" x 12'9" (Galleria Dell'Accademia, Venice). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- About, why would art historians think the figure at the bottom right of the diagonal is St. Jerome? Wasn't St. Jerome one of the Church Fathers and therefore a man who lived hundreds of years after the crucifixion? Wouldn't it be more logical to suppose this figure is somebody contemporary with the crucifixion such as an apostle or something? 1:26(3 votes)
- St. Jerome is often depicted in art as an semi-clothed acetic wearing red, so art historians think it's a good guess that the figure at the bottom right is Jerome. Artists often combine saints from different time periods or portray events anachronistically. In the tradition of a Sacra Conversatione, artists may want to include patron saints of cities, donors, or guilds.(17 votes)
- Who or what is the small figure on the bottom left corner of the painting?(5 votes)
- From the author:Great question! Looks like an angel to me, perhaps with the jar of ointment which is an attribute of the Virgin Mary, but I am not entirely sure.(5 votes)
- At 1.33, they mention Mary Magdelene, and I know there is debate over whether she and Christ had a relationship, but wouldn't it be quite risky for him to paint Mary Magdelene there, seeing as the Catholic church very strongly rejects the idea that she might have had a relationship with Christ? What is her purpose in the painting?(3 votes)
- Since they mentioned that this is for the artist's tomb, I think the characters' significance in the painting are very personal to Titian that we might never know why they were there.
And Mary Magdalene is not necessarily bad in the Catholic Church even in this time since, according to mainstream tradition, she was a former prostitute and followed Christ's teachings later on.(3 votes)
- At, what was the dispute that caused the painting not to be added to the church? 0:44(3 votes)
- It might have been that Titian never finished the painting, thus it wasn't added.(1 vote)
- Atit said that a pegan was holding a cross wasn't the artist Christen and if so why would the person be pegan 2:49(1 vote)
- The person is identified as a Sibyl, which were female prophets that prophesied the coming of Christ. They were from the old world, and thus pagan.
The crucifix identifies her as the Hellespontine Sibyl, as she prophesied the Crucifixion.(2 votes)
- Who was the other artist that finished the painting?(1 vote)
- In the video description, it says that Palma il Giovane was the artist who finished the painting.(1 vote)
- How old was Titain when he made this painting? He must have been rather old if he was now thinking of his own death.(0 votes)
- Historians are still not sure about Titian's birth year, they have a 1488-1490 window (and a 1477 outlier). By taking that range Titian would be in his late 80s when he did this painting.(2 votes)
Video transcript
(lighthearted music) Male Voiceover: We're in
the Accademia in Venice, standing in front of a very late Titian. In fact, a painting so late in his life, that not only did he
intend it for his own tomb, but it was unfinished at this death. Female Voiceover: Parts
of it were finished by another artist after Titian's death. Male Voiceover: We have some evidence that the angel holding the large candle may have been added by that later artist. Female Voiceover: The painting
was intended for his tomb in the church of the Frari here in Venice, that Titian painted two
other great paintings for; his Assunta, or the Assumption of the
Virgin, and also his Pesaro Madonna. So, this was a church that
he was very familiar with, that he had a relationship with. Male Voiceover: And where he is buried; although, there was a dispute,
so this painting was not added. This is a Pieta, which was
a rare subject for Titian, and we think that it would
have been on the right wall, so you would have
approached it at an angle; and it helps to explain the composition. Female Voiceover: That's true,
generally, for Titian's work, that he was very aware of
the approach of the viewer toward the painting in the way in which the figures depicted
related to the viewer. Male Voiceover: Well, look at
the composition of this painting. You have a very stable
architectural form in the middle, and that might well create
a sense of stability; but in Titian's hands, it doesn't, because he's got this wonderful
diagonal that moves up from the lower right
corner through the figure that is draped in red that some art
historians think may be St. Jerome, through the shoulders of
Christ, to Mary, wearing blue, finally to Mary Magdalene, who stands, and then that line is
stopped by her right hand. Female Voiceover: She
strides forward towards us, although she looks away from us. Some art historians think
that the figure St. Jerome, who's kneeling and grasping
the hand of Christ, looking up at Christ and Mary, may
be a portrait of Titian himself; and Titian does appear,
we think, in the Pieta, in a painting within the painting
that we see on the lower right. There's a small image of two
figures praying toward a Pieta. Male Voiceover: That's stacked
right over the family crest, which you can see just below that canvas. Female Voiceover: That
identification with Titian and his son is pretty certain; so this is personal image for the artist. It's clear that Titian
often worked on paintings for long periods of time,
returning to them again and again, which is something you
can do with oil paint; but, to me, it makes
sense that you might not finish a painting that's
destined for your own tomb. Male Voiceover: The forms that frame the central figures are
enormous and powerful. On the left, you see
Moses holding the laws, holding the staff that
he'll strike a rock with to create a spring miraculously. On the right, you see a sculpture
of a pagan holding a cross. Female Voiceover: So, Moses,
from the Old Testament, the Sibyl figure from classical antiquity, who prophesied the coming of Christ, and so therefore, she holds a cross, and these two figures
represented a sculpture because they are from the older
pagan and Jewish traditions. Male Voiceover: But, Titian also refers to his own history much more
directly in this painting. In the center, it is this massive
piece of architecture, this apse. We can see this rusticated masonry, and a broken pediment at the top, but inside you see this concave space with a mosaic at its top that reminds us of the mosaics in San Marco in Venice, that were referred to
[unintelligible] of Giovanni Bellini, the great Venetian artist
that came before Titian. These were formative paintings
for Titian's own early career, and here, in his last years,
he refers back to this history. Female Voiceover: Although
the painting is unfinished, we do get a sense of how
oil paint allowed Titian and other Venetian artists
to work on paintings over a long period of
time to be expressive with their brushwork, to
have a sense of immediacy and individuality in that brushwork, to create forms that were open,
that lack a kind of finality. Male Voiceover: That's right,
this painting feels mutable. It feels as if Titian might have continued to push the paint, and
that form might resolve, or in some places, continue to dissolve. Part of the power of this painting has to do with the fact that
it is represented at night, but it allows Titian
to have these figures, these forms, emerge out of darkness. Female Voiceover: The light almost
seems to emerge from Christ. There is that interest in spiritual light, that is something we see
in the work of Titian going back to his other paintings
in the Frari, like the Assumption. The figures are life-size, the painting
itself, is probably about 10 feet high. This is still, though, a very
intimate and personal image. (lighthearted music)