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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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Tintoretto, the Origin of the Milky Way
Jacopo Tintoretto, The Origin of the Milky Way, c. 1575, oil on canvas, 149.4 x 168 cm (The National Gallery, London). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
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- Tintoretto's paintings always look dark in comparison to other paintings by the Venetian school. Why is that?(11 votes)
- From what I understand, he would prime his canvases with a dark color and then paint in the light parts quickly, which makes sense if you think of Tintoretto as kind of the next generation of Venetian painters (after the Giorgiones and Titians), pointing more toward the darkness of the Baroque to come.(10 votes)
- i was just wondering... is the godess juno the romen godess hara?(5 votes)
- Hera is the Greek goddess. Juno is the roman equivalent.(13 votes)
- So, did Hercules get immortal life?(5 votes)
- The hero had to serve Eurystheus for twelve years while he performed the Labors. When the tasks were completed, Apollo said, Hercules would become immortal. Unlike other men, instead of dying and going to the Underworld of Hades, he would become a god.(5 votes)
- Is the crabnebula in the milky way?(2 votes)
- Excellent question Cathy Moellenbeck! The answer is Yes! It is a major nebula that is very magnificent!(5 votes)
- why do gods + goddesses have specific things associated with them?(IE, Juno's peacock, Zeus' thunderbolt and eagle, etc.)(2 votes)
- In the answer to another question, someone mentioned the story of Hercules' 12 labors. That is, it was originally 10 but another 2 had to be committed before Hercules could be fully atoned. To me, this raises the symbolic idea of 12 as a "complete" number again, as it is seen throughout mythologies and religions. Does anyone know when or where this became considered a number of "completion"? I'll posit that there is more than one source, so let me know what you think, and why!
Also, 10 stars, 10 (original) labors? That's probably a stretch, food for thought!(2 votes) - At3:47, what is the origin of the word 'chiaroscuro?'(1 vote)
- 1680s, "disposition of light and dark in a picture," literally "bright-dark," from Italian chiaro "clear, bright" (from Latin clarus; see clear (adj.)) + oscuro (from Latin obscurus; see obscure (adj.)).
https://www.etymonline.com/word/chiaroscuro#etymonline_v_11243(3 votes)
- Did Hercules became a god or is he just a human?(1 vote)
- There are differing theories as with many Greek myths but Hercules is generally understood to have been a hero, half divine and half human who became fully divine.(2 votes)
- How is the technique of foreshortening achieved?(1 vote)
- Through the use of linear perspective.
http://www.idrawdigital.com/2010/04/tutorial-foreshortening-tricks/(1 vote)
- Juno had 3 children: Mars, Hebe and Vulcan. She was lactating in this painting. Which of her 3 children had she recently borne?(1 vote)
Video transcript
(piano music playing) Beth: Many cultures have sought to explain the white glowing band that can sometimes be seen in the night sky. Steven: That's the Milky Way, of course, and the Greeks and
Romans were no exception. We're in the National Gallery, in London, looking at the great Venetian painter Tintoretto's, The Origin of the Milky Way, which illustrates that very myth. Beth: According to this
version of the story of The Origin of the Milky Way, we see the god Jupiter,
the god of the sky, and the king of the gods. Steven: Now that's the
figure that's swooping down from the upper right,
who's swaddled in red. Beth: He has a baby in his arms that he's bringing to the
breast of his wife, Juno. Steven: The problem is the baby is not Juno's, not his wife's. Jupiter, also known as
Zeus in the Greek variant, was known to mess around. He had a liaison with a mortal woman, and the result was the offspring, Heracles, or Hercules. Beth: Zeus is bringing Hercules here to nurse on Juno's breast. Jupiter knew that if he did that, Hercules would acquire immortality. Steven: So, his wife is asleep. If he can get his baby, by another woman, to suckle at her breast, the baby acquires immortality, a good thing, but pretty sneaky. Beth: When this happens, Juno, naturally, wakes up, and pushes the
baby from her breast, and milk spurts from her
breasts, both up and down. The milk that spurts up is, in the myth, the origin of the Milky Way and, in fact, the word for galaxy
derives from the Greek word for milk, and the milk
that spurts down creates the lovely white lilies
that we all know and love. Steven: If we look at the
painting by Tintoretto, we can actually see the milk spurting up in these sharp diagonal lines, each ending with brilliant
sparkle of a star. We can see, from her other breast, the milk spurting down but, here, we don't see the lilies, and the reason is is we believe that this
canvas was actually cut down. Lilies were originally there, but are no longer present. Beth: In typical fashion
for a Venetian painting in the 16th century, we
have a sense of movement, of diagonal lines, of
foreshortening, of real drama. Steven: Tintoretto does employ an almost Marist quality
to the positioning of the figures, and there
are these arabesques, these kind of swoops in space. In fact, the entire
episode is taking place in the sky and, although
the bed seems fairly solid, you'll notice that it's
actually being held up, in the upper left, by a cloud. Beth: You can see the
clouds on the bottom, too, holding up the bed. The body of Juno is especially complex and mannerist in its pose. Look at how she leans down, but moves her upper body and her face up, as though she's moving
in opposite directions at the same time. Steven: These movements, these arabesques, are highlighted by the 4
angels, or the 4 putti, that are seen here as well. They're holding various attributes. You can see one of them holding a torch and an arrow. Another, chains, a net, and a bow. Those are attributes of the way in which love captures one. Beth: We also see other attributes of both Juno and Jupiter. We see an eagle, who's
associated with Jupiter, carrying a thunderbolt,
another attribute of Jupiter, and we see a peacock,
an attribute of Juno. Steven: What is most startling to me, in this painting, is its vivid colors. The painting just glows. Beth: That's what Venetian
painting was known for, a vivid, intense coloration. Steven: Also, the way in
which the more subtle tones for instance, of Juno's
body, really creates a beautiful sense of
the turn of the flesh. Look at her thighs,
there's that foreshortening as that knee comes towards us, but there's such a subtle modulation of light and shadow in that chiaroscuro. It really feels as if
that flesh has elasticity. Beth: My favorite passage is the angel just below Juno's head. Look at the blues and pinks and greens in its wings, and the way that its torso is in shadow but its legs
move up into the light. What's fun about this, is this idea of the myth of the origin of the Milky Way and the very different way
we think of the Milky Way in the early 21st century. Steven: I think we're still struggling to understand the
immensity of the Universe and really to understand its origins. Beth: We don't explain it, generally, Steven: (laughing) No, that's true. Soon after this painting was painted, less than a 100 years later, Galileo looked up, with a telescope, at the Milky Way, and recognized that it wasn't just a white glowing band, that it was made up of individual stars. Steven: Now we try to grasp the immensity of what the Milky Way is
actually comprised of, of the number of stars. Beth: Right. The Milky
Way apparently contains something like between
200 and 400 billion stars, and is more than a 100
million light years across. This is inconceivable. I think I like the myth with the breast milk a little better. Steven: I'm not sure which
seems more miraculous, the story of Juno and
Jupiter, or the science behind our contemporary understanding. (piano music playing)