TITIAN
The mountains of Cadore are not always visible from Venice, but there
they lie, behind the mists, and in the clear shining after rain, in the
golden eventide of autumn, and on steel-cold winter days they stand out,
lapis-lazuli blue or deep purple, or, like Shelley's enchanted peaks, in
sharp-cut, beautiful shapes rising above billowy slopes. Cadore is a
land of rich chestnut woods, of leaping streams, of gleams and glooms,
sudden storms and bursts of sunshine. It is an order of scenery which
enters deep into the affections of its sons, and we can form some idea
of the hold its mingling of wild poetry and sensuous softness obtained
over the mind of Titian from the fact that in after years, while he
never exerts himself to paint the city in which he lived and in which
all his greatest triumphs were gained, he is uniformly constant to his
mountain home, enters into its spirit and interprets its charm with warm
and penetrating insight.
The district formed part of the dependencies of the great republic, and
relied upon Venice for its safety, its distinction, and in great measure
for its employment. The small craftsmen and artists from all the country
round looked forward to going down to seek their fortune at her hands.
They tacked the name of their native town to their own name, and were
drawn into the magnificent life of the city of the sea, and came back
from time to time with stories of her art, her power, and beauty.
The Vecelli had for generations held honourable posts in Cadore. The
father and grandfather of the young Tiziano were influential men, and
with his brother and sisters he must have been brought up in comfort.
There are even traditions of noble birth, and it is evident that Titian
was always a gentleman, though this did not prevent his being educated
as a craftsman, and when he was only ten years old he was sent down to
Venice to be apprenticed to a mosaicist.
It was a changing Venice to which Titian came as a boy; changing in its
life, its social and political conditions, and its art was faithfully
registering its aspirations and tastes. More than at any previous time,
it was calculated to impress a youth to whom it had been held up as the
embodiment of splendid sovereignty, and the difference between the
little hill-town set in the midst of its wild solitudes and the
brilliant city of the sea must have been dazzling and bewildering. A
new sense of intellectual luxury had awakened in the great commercial
centre. The Venetian love of splendour was displaying itself by the
encouragement and collection of objects of art, and both ancient and
modern works were in increasing request. On Gentile Bellini's and
Carpaccio's canvases we see the sort of people the Venetians were,
shrewd, quiet, splendour-loving, but business-like, the young men
fashionably dressed, fastidious connoisseurs, splendid patrons of art
and of religion. Buyers were beginning to find out what a delightful
decoration the small picture made, and that it was as much in place in
their own halls as over the altar of a chapel. The portrait, too, was
gaining in importance, and the idea of making it a pleasure-giving
picture, even more than a faithful transcript, was gathering ground. The
"Procession of the Relic" was still in Gentile's studio, but the Frari
"Madonna and Child" was just installed in its place. Carpaccio was
beginning his long series of St. Ursula, and the Bellini and Vivarini
were in keen rivalship.
Titian is said to have passed from the _bottega_ of Gentile to that of
Giovanni Bellini, but nothing in his style reminds us of the former, and
even his early work has very little that is really Bellinesque, whereas
from the very first he reflects the new spirit which emanated from
Giorgione. Titian was a year the elder, and we can divine the sympathy
that arose between the two when they came together in Bellini's School.
As soon as their apprenticeship was at an end they became partners. Fond
of pleasure and gaiety, loving splendour, dress, and amusement, they
were naturally congenial companions, and were drawn yet more closely
together by their love for their art and by the aptitude with which
Titian grasped Giorgione's principles.
And if we ask ourselves why we take for granted that of two young men so
closely allied in age and circumstance we accept Giorgione as the leader
and the creator of the new style, we may answer that Titian was a more
complex character. He was intellectual, and carried his intellect into
his art, but this was no new feature. The intellect had had and was
having a large share in art. But in that part which was new, and which
was launching art upon an untried course, Giorgione is more intense,
more one-idea'd than Titian. What he does he does with a fervour and a
spontaneity that marks him as one who pours out the language of the
heart.
The partnership between the two was probably arranged a few years before
the end of the century, for we have seen that young painters usually
started on their own account at about nineteen or twenty. For some years
Titian, like Giorgione, was engrossed by the decorations of the Fondaco
dei Tedeschi. The groups of figures described by Zanetti in 1771 show us
that while Giorgione made some attempt at following classic figures,
Titian broke entirely with Greek art and only thought of picturesque
nature and contemporary costume.
Vasari complains that he never knew what Titian's "Judith" was meant to
represent, "unless it was Germania," but Zanetti, who had the benefit of
Sebastiano Ricci's taste, declares that from what he saw, both Giorgione
and Titian gave proofs of remarkable skill. "While Giorgione showed a
fervid and original spirit and opened up a new path, over which he shed
a light that was to guide posterity, Titian was of a grander and more
equable genius, leaning at first, indeed, upon Giorgione's example, but
expanding with such force and rapidity as to place him in advance of
his companion, on an eminence to which no later craftsman was able to
climb.... He moderated the fire of Giorgione, whose strength lay in
fanciful movement and a mysterious artifice in disposing shadows,
contrasted darkly with warm lights, blended, strengthened, blurred, so
as to produce the semblance of exuberant life." Certain works remain to
link the two painters; even now critics are divided as to which of
the two to attribute the "Concert" in the Pitti. The figures are
Giorgionesque, but the technique establishes it as an early Titian, and
it is doubtful whether Giorgione would be capable of the intellectual
effort which produced the dreamy, passionate expression of the young
monk, borne far out of himself by his own melody, and half recalled to
life by the touch on his shoulder. Titian, like Giorgione, was a
musician, and the fascination of music is felt by many masters of the
Italian schools. In one picture the player feels vaguely after the
melody, in another we are asked to anticipate the song that is just
about to begin, or the last chords of that just finished vibrate upon
the ear, but nowhere else in all art has any one so seized the melody of
an instant and kept its fulness and its passion sounding in our ears as
this musician does.
Though we cannot say that Titian was the pupil of any one master, the
fifteen years, more or less, that he spent with Giorgione left an
indelible impression upon him. We have only to look at such a picture
as the "Madonna and Child with SS. John Baptist and Antony Abate,"
in the Uffizi, an early work, to recollect that in 1503 Giorgione at
Castelfranco had taken the Madonna from her niche in the sanctuary
and had enthroned her on high in a bright and sunny landscape with
S. Liberale standing sentinel at her feet, like a knight guarding
his liege lady.
Titian in this early group casts every convention aside; a beautiful
woman and lovely children are placed in surroundings whose charm is
devoid of hieratic and religious significance. The same easy unfettered
treatment appears in the "Madonna with the Cherries" at Vienna, and the
"Madonna with St. Bridget and S. Ulfus" at Madrid, and while it has been
surmised that the example of the precise Albert Dürer, who paid his
first visit to Venice in 1506, was not without its effect in preserving
Titian from falling into laxity of treatment and in inciting him to fine
finish, it is interesting to find that Titian was, in fact, discarding
the use of the carefully traced and transferred cartoon, and was
sketching his design freely on panel or canvas with a brush dipped in
brown pigment, and altering and modifying it as he went on.
The last years of Titian's first period in Venice must have been anxious
ones. The Emperor Maximilian was attacking the Venetian possessions on
the mainland, in anger at a refusal to grant his troops a free passage
on their way to uphold German supremacy in Central Italy. Cadore was
the first point of his invasion, and from 1507 Titian's uncle and
great-uncle were in the Councils of the State, his father held an
important command, and his brother Francesco, who had already made some
progress as an artist, threw down his brush and became a soldier. Titian
was not one of those who took up arms, but his thoughts must have been
full of the attack and defence in his mountain fastnesses, and he must
have anxiously awaited news of his father's troops and of the squadrons
of Maso of Ferrara, under whose colours Francesco was riding. Francesco
made a reputation as a distinguished soldier, and was severely wounded,
and when peace was made, Titian, "who loved him tenderly," persuaded him
to return to the pursuit of art.
The ratification of the League of Cambray, in which Julius II.,
Maximilian, and Ferdinand of Naples combined against the power of
Venice, was disastrous for a time to the city and to the artists who
depended upon her prosperity. Craftsmen of all kinds first fled to her
for shelter, then, as profits and orders fell off, they left to look
elsewhere for commissions. An outbreak of plague, in which Giorgione
perished, went further to make Venice an undesirable home, and at this
time Sebastian del Piombo left for Rome, Lotto for the Romagna, and
Titian for Padua.
We may believe that Titian never felt perfectly satisfied with
fresco-painting as a craft, for when he was given a commission to fresco
the halls of the Santo, the confraternity of St. Anthony, patron-saint
of Padua, he threw off beautifully composed and spirited drawings, but
he left the execution of them chiefly to assistants, among whom the
feeble Domenico Campagnola, a painter whom he probably picked up at
Padua, is conspicuous. Even where the landscape is best, as in "S.
Anthony restoring a Youth," the drawing and composition only make us
feel how enchanting the scene would have been in oils on one of Titian's
melting canvases. In those frescoes which he executed himself while his
interest was still fresh, the "Miracle which grants Speech to an Infant"
is the most Giorgionesque. Up to this time he had preserved the
straight-cut corsage and the actual dress of his contemporaries, after
the practice of Giorgione; he keeps, too, to his companion's plan of
design, placing the most important figures upon one plane, close to the
frame and behind a low wall or ledge which forms a sort of inner frame
and with a distant horizon. In the Paduan frescoes he makes use of this
plan, and the straight clouds, the spindly trees, and the youths in gay
doublets are all reminiscent of his early comrade, but the group of
women to the left in the "Miracle of the Child" shows that Titian is
beginning more decidedly to enunciate his own type. The introduction of
portraits proves that he was tending to rely largely upon nature, in
contradistinction to Giorgione's lyrically improvised figures. He fuses
the influence of Giorgione and the influence of Antonello da Messina and
the Bellini in a deeper knowledge of life and nature, and he is passing
beyond Giorgione in grasp and completeness. When he was able to return
to Venice, which he did in 1512, a temporary peace having been concluded
with Maximilian, he abandoned the uncongenial medium of fresco for good,
and devoted himself to that which admitted of the afterthoughts, the
enrichments, the gradual attainment of an exquisite surface, and at
this time his works are remarkable for their brilliant gloss and finish.
During the next twelve years we may group a number of paintings which,
taken in conjunction with those of Giorgione, show the true Venetian
School at its most intense, idyllic moment. They are the works of a man
in the pride of youth and strength, sane and healthy, an example of the
confident, sanguine, joyous temper of his age, capable of embodying
its dominant tendencies, of expressing its enjoyment of life, its
worldly-mindedness, its love of pleasure, as well as its noble feeling
and its grave and magnificent purpose.
For absolute delight in colour let us turn to a picture like the "Noli
me tangere" of the National Gallery. The golden light, the blues and
olives of the landscape, the crimson of the Magdalen's raiment, combine
in a feast of emotional beauty, emphasising the feeling of the woman,
whose soul is breathed out in the word "Master." The colour unites with
the light and shadow, is embedded in it; and we can see Titian's delight
in the ductile medium which had such power to give material sensation.
In these liquid crimsons, these deep greens and shoaling blues, the
velvety fulness and plenitudes of the brush become visible; we can look
into their depths and see something quite unlike the smooth, opaque
washes of the Florentines.
In such a masterpiece as "Sacred and Profane Love," painted during
these years for the Borghese, there are summed up all those artistic
aims towards which the Venetian painters had been tending. The picture
is still Giorgionesque in mood. It may represent, as Dr. Wickhoff
suggests, Venus exhorting Medea to listen to the love-suit of Jason; but
the subject is not forced upon us, and we are more occupied with the
contrast between the two beautiful personalities, so harmoniously
related to each other, yet so opposed in type. The gracious,
self-absorbed lady, with her softly dressed hair, her loose glove, her
silvery satin dress, is a contrast in look and spirit to the goddess
whose free, simple attitude and outward gaze embody the nobler ideal.
The sinuous and enchanting line of Venus's figure against the crimson
cloak has, I think, been the outcome of admiration for Giorgione's
"Sleeping Venus," and has the same soft, unhurried curves. Titian's two
figures are perfectly spaced in a setting which breathes the very aroma
of the early Renaissance. A bas-relief on the marble fountain represents
nymphs whipping a sleeping Love to life, while a cupid teases the chaste
unicorn. A delicious baby Love splashes in the water, fallen rose-leaves
strew the mellow marble rim, around and away stretches a sunny country
scene, in which people are placidly pursuing a life of ease and
pleasure. What a revelation to Venice these pictures were which began
with Giorgione's conversaziones! How little occupied the women are with
the story. Venus does not argue, or check off reasons on her fingers,
like S. Ursula. Medea is listening to her own thoughts, but the whole
scene is bathed in the suggestion of the joy and happiness of love. The
little censer burning away in the blue and breathless air might be a
philtre diffusing sensuous dreams, and when the rays of the evening sun
strike the picture, where it now hangs, and bring out each touch of its
glowing radiance, it seems to palpitate with the joy of life and to
thrill with the magic of summer in the days when the world was young.
With the influence still lingering of Giorgione's "Knight of Malta,"
Titian produced some of his finest portraits in the decade that led to
the middle of his life. The "Dr. Parma" at Vienna, the noble "Man in
Black" and "Man with a Glove" of the Louvre, the "Young Englishman" of
the Pitti, with his keen blue eyes, the portrait at Temple Newsam,
which, with some critics, still passes as a Giorgione, are all examples
in which he keeps the half-length, invented by Bellini and followed by
Giorgione.
After the visit to Padua he shows less preference for costume, and his
women are generally clothed in a loose white chemise, rather than the
square-cut bodice.
We do not wonder that all the leading personages of Italy wished to be
painted by Titian. His are the portraits of a man of intellect. They
show the subject at his best; grave, cultivated, stately, as he appeared
and wished to appear; not taken off his guard in any way. What can be
more sympathetic as a personality than the Ariosto of the National
Gallery? We can enter into his mind and make a friend of him, and yet
all the time he has himself in hand; he allows us to divine as much as
he chooses, and draws a thin veil over all that he does not intend us to
discover. The painter himself is impersonal and not over-sensitive; he
does not paint in his own fancies about his sitter--probably he had
none; he saw what he was meant to see. There was what Mr. Berenson calls
"a certain happy insensibility" about him, which prevented him from
taking fantastic flights, or from looking too deep below the surface.
[Illustration: _Titian._
ARIOSTO.
_London._
(_Photo, Mansell and Co._)]