Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese -- Rivals in Renaissance Venice

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese -- Rivals in Renaissance Venice    2009/04/11 09:17
Louvre, Paris, France / Reunion des Musees Nationaux / Art Resource Titian, Supper at Emmaus, 1533-34 The Boston show is full of groupings that allow you to compare how all three artists handled similar subjects. At various times each of them produced a version of The Supper at Emmaus, the story from the New Testament in which the Risen Christ reveals himself to a pair of astonished disciples. Titian's came first, in 1533-34, a picture of masterly calm and balance that borrows the stabilizing horizontal format of Leonardo's Last Supper. At the realization that his table mate is Christ, the disciple at left draws back, but gently. The one at right, who rises slightly from his chair, is probably a portrait of the patron who commissioned the painting, Count Nicola Maffei of Mantua. Szepmuveszeti Muzeum, Budapest Tintoretto, Supper at Emmaus, c. 1542 Around 1542 the young Tintoretto took on the same subject and made it a scrum, full of lunging bodies and energies exploding outward to the edges of the canvas. The paint is laid down in rough strokes, with none of the fine finish that characterizes Titian's version. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam Veronese, Supper at Emmaus, mid-1570s It fell to Veronese in the mid-1570s to reconcile the two approaches. His Supper has more gestural drama than Titian's — arms are flung outward, one apostle's jaw drops. But because most of the figures are turned inwards towards Christ, the picture has the coherence and structural integrity that Tintoretto's lacks. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Titian, Venus With a Mirror, c. 1555 Titian brought the Renaissance nude into its full glory. Here the Godess of love regards herself in a mirror held in such a way that just one eye is reflected, which appears to look at us, the viewer. She modestly covers one breast — though not the other — and the fur-lined garment she pulls around her is as sensuous and inviting as flesh itself. Titian never let go of this painting, which was still in his studio when he died in 1576. Kunsthistoriches Museum, Gemaldegalerie, Vienna Tintoretto, Susannah and the Elders, c. 1555-56 At around the same time that Titian executed his Venus, Tintoretto turned a story from the Old Testament into an intricate exercise in erotic surveillance. The old men at top and lower left corner attempt to catch a full frontal view of the naked Susannah, who thwarts them with the deft positioning of her arms and leg. She offers part of that view to us, however. But only the mirror holds the full view — which it leaves to our imagination. Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska Veronese, Venus With a Mirror (Venus at Her Toilet), mid-1580s Veronese knew and admired Titian's Venus with a Mirror. Here he offers a rear view variation, with the mirror, as in Tintoretto's picture, hinting at the full frontal view that we can't quite see. Fur-lined gowns like the one Venus wears here were sometimes associated with courtesans. Likewise the pearls in her upswept braid. By Venetian law, only respectably married aristocratic women could wear pearl necklaces, so courtesans experimented freely with threading them through their hair. Galleria Palatina, Florence Titian, Portrait of a Man (Tommaso Mosti?), c. 1520 As artists perfected their means of achieving natural likenesses, portraiture exploded in 16th-century Italy. Instead of the stiff head-and-shoulders view that the previous century had favored, sitters were represented now in more relaxed three-quarter poses and at fuller length. Titian arrived at a formula that perfectly suited the tastes of the aristocratic families who were his chief patrons. He presented them as elegant figures in basic black, the men set again dark backgrounds in garments trimmed with the lace, pearls, leather and fur that Titian's adroit brush could so beautifully imitate. Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands Tintoretto, Portrait of a Man Aged Twenty-Six, 1547 Tintoretto, 30 years younger than Titian, frequently positioned himself as a challenger to the older master, making pictures with more turbulent compositions and freer brushwork. But in his portraiture he often seems to cede the field to Titian, acknowledging that his rival's approach to the figure is the one to pursue. Szepmuveszeti Muzeum, Budapest Veronese, Portrait of a Man, c. 1551-53 Veronese was more given to "propping" his portraits. Titian focused on the solitary drama of face and hands. In portraits like this one, Veronese provided his subjects with allegorical backgrounds and accessories. The ruins and ivy here symbolize loss and death.