Patrick Bade
Venetian Painting, Part 2

Patrick Bade - Venetian Painting, Part 2

- [Compere] Patrick, welcome and welcome to everybody, and I will hand over to you whenever you’re ready.

• Thank you, Judy. And, as you see, I’ve got a rather macabre welcome for you today with this picture. It’s a late picture by Titian of the very gruesome subject of the “Flaying of Marsyas.” And this painting was first exhibited in London in a show of Venetian painting at the Royal Academy in 1983. And I don’t think any painting in my lifetime has had quite such an impact as this did. Day after day, if you went to the Royal Academy, you’d find a little crowd of artists, art lovers, critics, standing in front of this painting absolutely mesmerised by it. And it was partly because nobody had seen it before, because it had been hidden away in a Hungarian convent and then, after the Second World War, in a little, local museum in Hungary. I don’t know what the nuns made of this picture. A rather gory thing to have to live with. But it also fascinated people because of the extraordinary painterly techniques that Titian used. I mean, we’ve seen, last week, beginning with Bellini and then through Giorgione and Titian, how Venetian artists began to exploit the expressive possibilities of applying paint to a surface. Now, Titian lived a very long time. He lived to nearly 90, or possibly to 90, and, by the end of his life, he had experimented with every way you can put paint on a surface. Now, why is this sticking? Yes, that’s better. And this painting… I wish I had better quality details to show you. I think you’ll just have to go to Hungary and have a look at this painting.

But in every, not just brushes, you can see the paint has been put on with rags, it’s been put on with fingers, it’s been smeared. There are glazes, which are transparent layers of colour. There are scumbles. He’s the first great scumbler. And stumbling, which you can see here, is where you… this is on quite a rough canvas, so it’s quite a textured canvas, and when you drag thin, dryish paint over a textured surface, it goes on in a bumpy way. You can see it here. There’s scumble along the knife that’s been used to skin Marsyas, the blood is scumbled. It’s just absolutely extraordinary. So, I say, every artist in London was obsessed, fascinated by this picture. The number one being, of course, Francis Bacon. And another artist who went day after day to look at it, he’s called Paul Rumsey. I think he might be the living artist I most admire at the moment. And about two weeks ago, I went to visit him at his home in Essex. And we talked about this picture and he said how obsessed he was, for years, by this picture. And he attempted multiple versions of the same subject of the flaying of Marsyas, all of which ended in frustration. And he showed me fragments of a large version that he tore up in frustration. And I bought these two fragments from him, which I find very fascinating, and I’m very pleased to have. So, Titian, as I said, he’s explored every way you can put paint on a surface. He’s the granddaddy of painterly painters. All later, painterly painters like Rubens, like Rembrandt, Van Dyck, through into the 18th century, through into the 19th century, and even the 20th century, they all look back to Titian for inspiration.

So, at this point, I can hear people saying, and I can see the numbers going off of Q and A, people are probably saying, “What is painterly? What does painterly mean?” And it’s best understood as the opposite of linear. And it’s a concept which was first defined, really, by Vasari. In the middle here, we’ve got a portrait of Vasari, a minor painter, but very important, because, well, I’ve quoted him so many times, he collected all the material he could about the lives of the artists, and he published this extensive book, the “Lives of the Artists”. And he is the source of, pretty well, everything we know about Italian Renaissance artists. And he talked about the contradiction between colori and disenio. Colori, literally colour, but it’s much more than that. It’s sensuous paint surface, it’s everything you mean by painterly, the expressive use of paint. Disenio is a line drawing. Colori is a, sort of, sensuous, instinctive approach to art. Disenio is much more cerebral, it’s much more intellectual. And so, he contrasted Titian with Michelangelo. Two details here, Titian on the Left, “The Rape of Europa,” and the “Doni Tondo” on the right-hand side by Michelangelo. Michelangelo, that is a painting where everything is sharply defined by contour. From the unfinished paintings we know of by Michelangelo, we know that his approach to painting was, essentially, paint by numbers, that he would transfer the contours of the figures and the composition onto the surface and he would, systematically, move across the surface filling in the contours with colour. This is a very different approach from the painterly approach of Titian, who would be more likely to work up the whole thing simultaneously. So, last week we looked at the early career of Titian and his commission by Alfonso d'Este for his studiolo. And, though, that took him best part of 10 years, from about 1516 to about 1526. And, during that period, while he was working on those pictures for Alfonso d'Este he also painted two great religious paintings that completely revolutionised… the approach to religious subject matter. Both are to be seen in the Frari Church in Venice.

We see, here, the main altarpiece, which is of the assumption of the Virgin who doesn’t die. She rises to heaven… and ecstatically. And let’s see if we’ve got a better reproduction of it here, see the Virgin rising up towards God and the apostles’ arms flailing ecstatically as she rises, sort of, jet propelled, to heaven. So, this is an entirely new altarpiece. There had not been anything like this before. And, of course, it looks forward to the Baroque in the 17th century. In its theatricality, its movement, and its unity through complexity and movement. These are features… so this is going to very profoundly influence religious art in Catholic countries through to the mid 18th century. And here we see the apostles flailing around ecstatically. The other picture, which is in a side chapel in the Frari church in Venice, is the Pesaro “Madonna.” And this was commissioned by the aristocratic Pesaro family. And this is equally revolutionary. If you compare it to Bellini’s “San Zaccaria” altarpiece on the right-hand side, which is what had, by then, become a traditional the Virgin and child, surrounded by saints. It’s symmetrical, the Virgin and child are in the middle, and it’s somewhat static. And, again, Titian has, sort of, dramatised it. He’s turned it into a drama. And we have the donas of the Pesero family in the foreground and the saints that intervene with the Virgin and child. The Virgin and child are no longer in the middle, no longer static, but pushed over to the right-hand side and in movement.

And that’s very beautiful. It’s said, traditionally said, that the Virgin, in this picture, was painted from Titian’s own wife who died shortly after, here is the face, who died shortly after this picture was painted, in childbirth. So, Titian is also a key figure in the development of portraiture. And here, we’ve got “Doge Loredan” by Giovanni Bellini on the right-hand side. And it’s a format, as I said last week, that’s derived from Flemish painting. It’s rather static, of course, with the… bust lengths three quarter view figure. And this Spanish, this Flemish illusionistic device of having a little ledge along the foreground. So, Titian has based this portrait on the left. The man with the blue sleeve on Bellini. But you can see how he’s taken it much further. The figure is twisted, this contrapposto, which is a feature of the High Renaissance. And you can see how the sleeve protrudes over the ledge, apparently, illusionistically, into our space. Now, this has been a very admired painting by Titian all through the centuries. A great deal of speculation about who the subject of this picture is. For a long time, it was believed to be the great poet Aretino. And then it was suggested it might be a self-portrait because of the way the figure turns towards us and the way his gaze meets our gaze. And the National Gallery, recently, think they have identified the subject of the picture as an aristocrat called Barbarigo. But I’m sure that the speculation will continue. But the picture is always known as the man with a blue sleeve. And, of course, that is the really spectacular feature of this picture, this amazing depiction of the material you feel you could stroke, you could touch. And, of course, he’s the first person to begin to do this, was Bellini. Here’s a detail, you can see here quite well how the actual texture of the paint’s surface is used to suggest the texture of the material.

Now, I mentioned last week, that Venice was, of course, the gateway to the east for Europe and, up until about 1500, most of the trade with the Far East, it came across the Middle East. It was the silk route, silk road. And the pigments for the colours like the lapis, which comes from Afghanistan, came all the way across the Middle East and it came in through Venice. And people have often made that link between, you know, the glorious colour of Venetian paintings and the fact that Venice was the main emporium in Europe for these materials, but also wonderful silks, Damask, and fabrics, that come from the Far East. And this ability to depict these gorgeous fabrics is a very big characteristic of Venetian paintings. This is an early portrait by Titian. I suppose he’s already 40 or so when he painted this around 1520, a young man with a glove. It’s in the Louvre and it’s in a rather dirty state, but it’s, obviously, not a gorgeously coloured picture. It’s quite a sober picture, a young man wearing black and white clothing. But when you get close to it, you can see that it is also very sumptuously painted and these are very magnificent clothes. And you’ve got this rather discreet depiction of a gold chain with a sapphire pendant that shows his elegance and his wealth. And this wonderful glove, this languid, elegant, gloved hand holding a glove from the other hand. So, you can see Titian’s… signature on the right-hand side. And this, sort of, slightly casual, languid elegance of this aristocratic young man, of course, is something that’s imitated by Van Dyck who really establishes the great portraiture tradition in Britain. And this is a Van Dyck on the right-hand side.

Van Dyck was obsessed by Titian. At one point, he actually owned 17 paintings by Titian which he bought in Italy, partly, I think, partly for commercial reasons ‘cause he sold them and he made money on the deal, but I think also he wanted to study these pictures at close hand and learn from them. This is somewhat later, around 1540. It’s a painting in the Pitti Palace in Florence. And it’s traditionally said it’s called “Portrait of an Englishman.” He does look very northern European. He could easily be English with his slate, grey eyes and his rather sandy, brown hair. And, again, there’s a lot of speculation. Who is this man? Some people think he’s the English aristocrat Henry Howard, but Titian’s portraits have a sense of life that is beyond any earlier painted portraits in the European tradition. They seem to breathe, they seem to breathe air, and there is air around them. And, again, this is something that looks forward to the portraiture of the Baroque Period. Here is a close up of this young, probably, Englishman. And this very beautiful, young boy. This is Ranuccio Farnese. You can see, he’s wearing, very, very richly dressed. You can see the cross of Malta. So, he was only 12 years old when this was painted. He’s already a knight of Malta. Three years later, at the age of 15, he was to be made a cardinal. He was the illegitimate son of pope Paul III. And, you know, it says something about the papacy, of the Renaissance Period, that none of this was hidden. It was all out there. It was all quite open and okay in most people’s eyes for the pope to have children and to promote them. And, usually, as just a, sort of, gesture of discretion, the illegitimate children of the pope were referred to as nipoti, nephews, rather than direct children.

And, of course, the term nepotism comes from this, in the way that the illegitimate children of the popes were favoured. Here is a closeup of Ranuccio Farnese. And here is his father, pope Paul III. Now, here, Titian has based his composition and the pose on the format that was already established by Raphael with this portrait of pope Julius II that I talked about a couple of weeks ago, which established the norm, the prototype, for all later papal portraits, three quarter view, half length, seated in a throne. Titian was, by the 1520s, 30s, he was the painter in demand by all the princes, all the crown heads of Europe. These two men were lifelong, bitter enemies. King Francis I of France on the left-hand side and the emperor Charles V. They spent a lifetime struggling with one another, battling with one another. But Titian was required to paint them both. Well, he knew Charles V quite well. I told you that story, last week, about Charles V going to his studio and picking up the brush, and then ennobling him as a knight of the Golden Fleece. Titian actually never met Francis I. So, this portrait, some people think it’s painted from a medal, but, in fact, Francis I was normally depicted in profile because he was incredibly proud of his big nose. He had an enormous nose. In France, they called him the king big nose. And I’m quite sure, from the day he was born, everybody said, “Oh, your majesty, you have the biggest nose in France. Your nose is so handsome.”

So, he’s always shown turning sideways to show off the size of his nose. And now, this is, again, this is a portrait that establishes a prototype which is taken up by many, many later artists, by Velazquez, by Van Dyck, or of a monarch, or a very powerful person. An equestrian portrait. This is Charles V at the decisive Battle of Muhlfeld in the German wars of religion when the Catholics won. And, I suppose, the idea from it comes from ancient statues and the one great, bronze equestrian statue that had survived from antiquity, which is the Marcus Aurelius, which you see bottom left. And then, as I said, this idea of an image of monarchical authority with the king on horseback, Titian establishes the prototype. We’ve got one of the two equestrian portraits of Charles I by Van Dyck on the right-hand side. Now, this also is an incredibly influential portrait, particularly on English portraiture. We all know how English people love their dogs, and I’m certainly no exception to that. I can hardly see a dog without wanting to hug it. But this is, again, emperor Charles V. He famously loved his dogs. Charles V, of course, was multilingual and he used different languages for people of different ranks. German, which I suppose was his birth language, was the language that he reserved for his beloved dogs. I suppose monarchs have always loved their dogs, like our dear queen with her corgis, because they know that the dog loves them for themselves and not their rank.

So, Charles V, initially, commissioned the portrait you see on the left-hand side from a German artist called Seisenegger, but it was rather dry, dryly painted, and he didn’t like it very much, so he commissioned Titian to paint this picture on the right-hand side, to repaint it. So, this painting was, actually, strangely, you’ve got a very great artist, Titian, copying and improving the work of a minor artist, Seisenegger. But this image of a standing gentleman, or aristocratic, or king with a dog looking up adoringly is one that’s, of course, again, taken up by Van Dyck. This is the earl of Stratford, Van Dyck, and it becomes an absolute cliche of English aristocratic portraiture. Gainsborough loves to paint English gentlemen with their beloved dogs looking up at them adoringly. Bottom left and bottom right, there are paintings by Gainsborough. Now, my feeling is that Titian is better at painting men than he is at painting women. And this is not exceptional. Titian, certainly, was very responsive to female beauty. He clearly loved women. And we have the reports of the ambassador of the duke of Ferrara, who was asking, why Titian was taking so long with the paintings for his studiolo. And rather maliciously, his ambassador to Venice says, “Oh, Titian, you know, he wastes all his time having sex with his female models.” So, Titian, certainly, loved women, he was very attracted to them, but the trouble with that is that male artists who love women, they’ll look at a man and they’ll see a human being, another human being, and they’ll look at a woman, really, as an object, as something to be desired. And they’re less likely to, I think, explore the woman’s personality than they might a man’s.

Anyway, this is a famous portrait by Titian that was commissioned by Isabella d'Este. It’s actually the second version of the portrait. When he painted this, she was actually already in her 60s. And, although I’m sure he flattered her, it probably wasn’t enough, and she rejected the first portrait and she said, “No, no, no, I want to look 20.” So, here, he’s made her look 20. The original portrait doesn’t survive, but we have a copy of it, actually, by Rubens, which we see on the right-hand side. So, Titian was, certainly, prepared to compromise with the truth, if it was required from him. Now, I want to talk about the female nude, 'cause Titian has a very special role in the image of the female nude. This is the first, famous, reclining female nude of the Renaissance. Who painted it? That’s a great question. It’s known as the “Dresden Venus.” Is it by Giorgione, as was once believed? Is it by Titian, as some art historians now assert? Or is it, actually, and I think this is quite probable, started by Giorgione and completed by Titian after Giorgione’s premature death? And it becomes a prototype for any number of reclining, female nudes by Titian and later artists. This is the most famous and admired of all Titian’s female nudes. This is the “Venus of Urbino” and lots of speculation about this. Is it actually a Venus? Is it just a Venetian courtesan, a prostitute? One version is that this was a cardinal who’d had a wonderful affair with a prostitute in Venice and commissioned this picture as a souvenir of that affair. So, that’s one theory about this picture.

Yes, I mean, these Titian nudes, of course, recently, many feminists have objected to the fact that you can go to the Louvre or the National Gallery or the National Gallery in Washington and you can see an awful lot of nude women who were, clearly, there for the pleasure of male viewers. And you can say, really, that a Titian nude is page three. I don’t know if all the non Brits will understand what page three is. Page three is in cheap, nasty newspapers. They used to have, on page three, there would always be a nude, or near nude, female nude pinup. And so Titian… he was providing sophisticated pinups for sophisticated male viewers. And, if you look at the expression of the “Venus of Urbino,” in its way, it’s just as as come hither as the expression on a page three nude in a cheap, English newspaper. One of the intriguing details of the “Venus of Urbino,” of course, is this woman rummaging in a cassone. And that might indicate that the painting has another meaning. Maybe it wasn’t made for this cardinal to celebrate his affair with a prostitute. It could have been made to celebrate a wedding because a cassone is a wedding chest. This is called the “Venus of Pardo” and, I suppose, it makes rather more clear the voyeuristic elements in these female nudes by Titian and his followers, with the thorn, who represents male lust, lifting off the drapery of the sleeping nude woman.

So, although it’s called the “Pardo Venus,” it’s almost certainly not a depiction of Venus, or not intended to be by Titian, and it seems to be an illustration of the myth of Jupiter and Antiope. So, these nudes, these reclining nudes, were a very nice earner for Titian. There are an awful lot of them that have survived. And some were by Titian, in his maturity, had a very active studio with lots of assistance. So, this is always a big question when one of these paintings comes up for sale at Christie’s or Sotheby’s and the experts have to make a decision about the authenticity of the picture. And the most valuable, of course, would be entirely autographed by Titian. And, probably, those, I think, those paintings are now mainly in national galleries because he would only have done that for very, very important collectors, the kings and so on. And then there are pictures which would be partly by his assistants, or entirely by his assistants, or that would be copies or prototypes. So, there are a wide range of degrees of authenticity and value in these pictures. And there are many, many variants that were produced and can be seen in the museums around the world. This one is, certainly, entirely autographed and it’s one of the most wonderful of all his nudes. This is “Venus Anadyomene,” Venus rising from the sea. And, as in other pictures I’ve mentioned in the last couple of weeks, this was his attempt to repaint a picture, a lost picture by Appelles, that had been described in antiquity, of Venus ringing out her hair as she rises from the sea. This is now in the National Gallery in Scotland. Hair being, of course, wonderfully one of a woman’s greatest weapons of seduction and always considered very erotic and very sexy, hence the very strict measures for women to cover up their hair, or hide their hair, in Islam and the more strict versions of Judaism.

This was another one of Titian’s most popular pictures that he produced many variants of. This is St. Mary Magdalene and she is also, often her hair is emphasised because of the story in the New Testament in the Christian Bible where she is, of course, a fallen woman. She’s an adulterous woman. And she is accepted and forgiven by Jesus Christ and she falls on her knees and she bathes his feet by weeping on his feet and wiping them with her hair. So, she’s always shown with lots and lots of gorgeous hair. This is a penitent Magdalene. She goes into the desert and she mortifies the flesh and she starves herself in the desert to show her penitence for her earlier sins. And so, oh, just a comparison here. I mean, essentially, Titian, although this is nominally a religious picture, it’s another pinup, rather like the “Venus Anadyomene.” And, again, the very seductive depiction of the hair. Now, there are two ways to depict Mary Magdalene. There’s the Titian way where she’s absolutely gorgeous and voluptuous and sexy and there is the Donatello way where, you know, she really has mortified the flesh. And, in fact, I think it must be Vasari who records a conversation of a visitor to Titian’s studio and he saw this picture on the left-hand and said, “Oh, I thought, you know, she looks rather well fed for somebody who’s been starving in the desert.”

And, quick as a flash, Titian came back, “Well, in my pictures she’s just arrived in the desert,” and this turned out to be one of his best earners, this picture. And there are many, many, as with the reclining Venuses, there are lots and lots and lots of versions. And, I suppose, you could order them and, you know, and say how erotic you wanted them to be. Whether you wanted to have, you know, see the breasts or see one breast or see part of the breasts or have them covered up, you could order them to taste. Now, this is one of the, I think, this show is still on, is it still on in Boston? It was on in London, of the seven great poesie that were painted right at the end of Titian’s life for King Philip II of Spain, who was a very, very religious fanatic. Of course, he has a bad reputation in England because he was married to Mary Tudor, who we call Bloody Mary, and, during her reign, you have the Protestant martyrs. Protestants were burnt to death for heresy. So, he was, certainly, a religious fanatic, but he had these gorgeous, sexy paintings by Titian. So, often these paintings, there were curtains in front of them. I suppose that made them even more erotic and exciting on a cold winter’s night when you could rip back the curtain to enjoy the delights of these scantily clad, or nude, female figures. This is the “Rape of Europa,” which is in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I think it’s the most gorgeous and sumptuous of all these scenes.

They’re astonishing painting, which was offered to the National Gallery in London and, stupidly, turned down because it was thought to be indecent. This is the story of Actaeon, who accidentally came across the goddess Diana, who’s the goddess of chastity, while he was hunting, and is proved fatal to him. And here is Diana. She punishes him by turning him into a stag and he’s ripped apart by his own hounds. And here is a detail. This is in the National Gallery in London. So, of all these late Titians, it’s the one I know best and I often go and look at it. And it’s really an astonishing work on a very coarse, very absorbent canvas with… a lot of stumblings, kind of, dryish paint dragged over the rough surface of the canvas. Now, we’re moving on, so Titian dies. When does he die? 1576, aged 89 or 90. And there are two… By this time, Venice is really on the wane as a power. The Ottoman Empire has risen and seized most of Venice’s Venetian Mediterranean empire and also the trade route across the Atlantic have been opened up. So, Venice is no longer the great economic or political power it was. But there are two more greats painters to go in the first great age of Venetian painting. I find the patterns of creativity in Venice are very, very fascinating and interesting to speculate about. The first great age of Venetian painting, starting with Giovanni Bellini in the 1460s.

It lasts just over 100 years and it ends with these two artists. Veronese on the left, Tintoretto on the right. And when they’ve died, it’s like God up there, her up there, she turns the tap off, and throughout the 17th century, really, there are no very great Venetian artists. There are a few good artists working in Venice that come from elsewhere, like Johann Liss, and so on. And then, mysteriously and strangely, her up there, she turns the tap on again, and there is, what you might call, a silver age of Venetian painting that goes through most of the 18th century that has artists like Tiepolo, Canaletto, Bellotto, and so on. So, here, this is Tintoretto, which means little dyer. His real name was Jacopo Robusti and his father was a dyer. So, he came from a very humble background. He was also nicknamed, in his lifetime, because of the dramatic quality of his work. According to Vasari, he was, briefly, a pupil of Titian, but they didn’t get on, they had a falling out. So, he was actually, largely, self-taught. And he, himself, said that what he wanted to do was to combine the painterly with the colori and the disenio. He wanted to combine the colori of Titian with the disenio of Michelangelo. And there’s, certainly, a very powerful influence of Michelangelo in his work in these very muscular, contorted figures you see in this picture, which is the St. Mark rescuing, who’s the patron saint of Venice, rescuing a slave. And here, for instance, you see the figure with the red shirt, or whatever it is, clinging to his very, very muscular body, on the right-hand side, in this twisted, contorted pose, very similar to Michelangelo. And I’ve inserted a detail from one of the Medici tombs.

So, very agitated. Now, is he a mannerist or not? I mean, he, rather like El Greco, and you can have the same argument about El Greco, there are certain features of mannerism, the contorted, elongated figures, the over-complicated compositions, the tricky, confusing perspective that he takes to an extreme. But if you think that mannerism is a cool, courtly style, then he’s not mannerist at all, 'cause there’s nothing cool about him. He’s, as I said, passionate, dramatic, almost expressionist artist. This is the discovery of the body of St. Mark in Alexandria. And it was, you know, it was great trade all the way through the Middle Ages into the 16th century in relics of saints. You know, wars were fought over them. And so, the body of St. Mark was seized in Egypt and taken back as a holy relic to Venice. Here, again, is the body of St. Mark being carried away by Venetians to be taken back to Venice. Again, it looks tremendously agitated and dramatic. Now, if you really want to get the full impact of Tintoretto you need to go to the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice. It is overwhelming. It’s one of the really, really great experiences you can have. And I mentioned a week or so ago going into Palma Cathedral, looking up into the dome, you know, going… I mean, I could list a few of these things, you know. Go to Padua, see the Giotto frescoes there. It’s an incredibly powerful, overwhelming experience, to go to the Scuola di San Rocco. Tintoretto worked there for 20 years and produced over 60 enormous canvases. He was famous for working very quickly.

And he was also notorious, actually, for undercutting other Venetian artists because he could work very quickly and he would do things more cheaply than other artists. There are a number of scenes from the Christian New Testament in the Scuola di San Rocco. This is the enunciation to the Virgin of the impending birth of Jesus Christ. And this is, again, this is the Holy House of the Virgin that I’ve mentioned several times in this course, but it seems to be the Holy House of the Virgin after a bombing raid. It really does look, kind of, shattered or bomb damaged. Very different from the Holy House of the Virgin as depicted by Crivelli, in the early Renaissance, in her homes and gardens, elegant Renaissance villa. And this is “The Adoration of the Shepherds” nativity and the adoration of the shepherds. So, these very tricky, complex, dramatic, almost cinematic perspective that you get in these works. And here is the following subject in the New Testament, which is “The Adoration of the Kings.” And what’s all this? Of course, this is a subject that lends itself to drama and agitation. This is “The Massacre of the Innocents.” And, of course, he uses every opportunity to indulge in these twisting, complex poses like the figure of the soldier you see on the right-hand side. And, again, in Scuola di San Rocco, a very dramatic, huge depiction of the crucifixion. Another standard subject of the New Testament is “The Last Supper” and, again, it’s, kind of, dramatic, operatic, cinematic with the table not parallel to the picture surface as it is in earlier Renaissance Last Suppers, but dramatically plunging diagonally into space. And so, for comparison, this is the… well, it’s a copy of the Leonardo “Last Supper” inserted bottom right.

Now, there was a disastrous fire in the Doge’s Palace in 1577. One of the great art history losses, I suppose, ever because some of the greatest masterpieces of Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian were lost in that fire. But it meant that there was a commission to paint a huge mural, called “In Paradiso.” And, initially, the commission went to Veronese, and he executed this modello, this is what it would’ve looked like if he’d painted it, on an enormous scale in the Doge’s Palace. This is a modello, which is in the Museum des Beaux-Arts in Lille. But he died before he could paint that, and so, by default, the commission went to Tintoretto. And this is what Tintoretto made of it. But Tintoretto and Veronese, these are the last two great artists of the first great age of Venetian painting. Very, very different personalities. So, here is the same subject painted. It’s the “Adoration of the Magi.” Top left it’s Tintoretto, sombre, dramatic, but right-hand side, it’s by Veronese. I think that’s the biggest picture in the National Gallery in London. Sumptuous, gorgeous, rich colours, absolutely loves painting silks and satins and damask and gorgeous materials, very festive. And every subject that Veronese paints turns into a party, in a way, a gorgeous party with gorgeous costumes. And he loves painting animals. And he brings in dwarves and dancing girls and whatever and it’s all very, very theatrical.

This is a serious subject because it’s the family of the defeated Persian emperor Darius before the victorious Alexander. You can see the women are all happy. He doesn’t make any attempt to paint ancient costumes. I think he, probably, thought they were two dull. So, they’re all wearing the most sumptuous, latest Venetian fashions of the 16th century. This is a biblical subject. This is “The Finding of Moses” by the Egyptian princess, and, once again, he, you know, he brings in black slaves and dwarves and really enjoys himself with gorgeous, richly patterned fabrics. This is, probably, I think, the biggest painting in the Louvre. It’s absolutely enormous. It’s “The Wedding Feast at Cana.” You know, it’s a story in the New Testament where Jesus turns the water to wine and the kind of guy you want at every party, you can do that. It’s absolutely enormous, full of life size figures. Now, spot Jesus. Where can you see him? Well, of course, he’s in the centre, but you might miss him. This is one hell of a party that’s going on in the Cana. And it’s absolutely festive, gorgeous, sumptuous. As I said, Veronese does the best parties and he loves all the incidental detail. He’s very good at dogs.

He’s a real dogs man. And this painting, which is, I think, the last one I’m going to talk about, this is “The Feast in the House of Levi,” which is, again, a New Testament subject. And, once again, Christ is in the middle of a rip roaring party is going on here with the usual, you know, dwarves and animals and all sorts of stuff. And, famously, this painting got Veronese into trouble with the Inquisition. They thought it was, actually, rather irreverent for Veronese to have painted Christ in the midst of all this merry party going, you know, lavish partying. And so, he was hauled in front of the Inquisition and he, rather astonishingly, he used the art justification of artistic licence. He said that “I’m an artist and this is what artists do.” And so, anyway, I think it’s a sign that the Venetian Inquisition was nothing like as strict as the Spanish Inquisition, that Veronese, actually, lived to tell the tale and got away with this defence of artistic licence. And I’ve just got a few details of this, again, to show you. Lots and lots of jolly incidents going on. And that’s my last image.

So, I’m going to go, well, I see we have a few questions. Let’s see what we’ve got.

Q&A and Comments:

This is Arlene Goldberg saying, “I’ve read that Titian did not do all the works he’s credited with, that some were done by his pupils.” Yes, that’s true. As I’ve said, he had a large active atelier, as Rubens did later. And you’ve got Rembrandt. So, with all three of those artists, you’ve always got problems of attribution that will, probably, never be solved, that people will be arguing about them forever. About to what extent the works are in the hand of the master, to what extent by assistants and pupils.

This is Harriet saying she was in Moravia in the archbishop’s palace in Kromeriz where they had the Titian where I began this talk with. So, I’ve never been there. It’s certainly somewhere on the list of places to go. My friend, who’s my favourite living artist, he’s called Paul Rumsey, R-U-M-S-E-Y, and he has a website. So, if you Google Paul Rumsey it will come up and you’ll see the kind of work… He’s an astonishing artist, really astonishing. I can’t think of another artist who draws as well and completely from imagination. He’s got a quite extraordinary imagination and technical ability.

Yes, somebody, Sandra Bernstein saying, “Yes, the Madonna in the Michelangelo, I’m sure that was drawn or painted from a male model, not from a female one.”

Q: “The Pesaro family in Venice, do they have any connection with the city of Pesaro?”

A: Yes, I imagine they do.

Q: “During Titian’s time, what were artists’ status in society?”

A: Well, he was instrumental in changing the status of artists. He, I suppose, it’s the three greats of the High Renaissance, Leonardo Raphael, Michelangelo, but even more, Titian, because most artists would’ve just been craftsmen, as they were in the Middle Ages. But Vasari, of course, is very, very keen to promote the status of artists. And that was one of the prime reasons, I suppose, he wrote the “Lives of the Artists.” “Assumption of the Virgin Mary” painted by Ruben, 1625 in Antwerp cathedral.

Well, Titian’s is, of course, a century earlier. Rubens, very familiar with Titian, particularly, actually, in his world after 1625. At 1628, Rubens went to Spain and then he came on to England and he saw all the Titians in the Spanish and the English royal collections and was very, very influenced by them.

“In all those depictions of Jesus with a diaper,” I don’t really think it’s a diaper, “did he also not soul everything around him or does he not ever do that?” Well, I love your question, Sandy. I really love it. But it’s, but yes… that’s a very naughty question, but, yeah, one can’t help speculating on these things. And also, isn’t it a little weird to show the genitals. Yeah, you’re right, you need to read that book, “The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art” which I’ve recommended to you before. It will explain all of that to you, fascinating book.

Q: “Why didn’t Renaissance painters sign their paintings?”

A: Some, yes, Titian quite often signed his paintings. Sometimes they did, even earlier.

Thank you for your kind comments.

Q: “The nude, where the hand is, the hand over the genitalia.” Yes. “Is this modesty or is the artist actually drawing attention to the genitalia by having the hand over them?”

A: There are different views about that.

“Titian’s nudes arms seemed out proportion to stubby legs.” Vasari would’ve probably have agreed with you. Vasari reports that Michelangelo visited Titian’s studio and commented afterwards that he couldn’t draw and didn’t know how to draw the human figure.

Jennifer, I wish I could help you. I’m so ignorant. I’m a 19th century person. I haven’t even really reached the 20th let alone the 21st, so I’m afraid I can’t recommend. I just don’t know anything about a particular screen or computer monitor.

This is Hilary saying, “Re Mary Magdalene, she was not a fallen woman. This was a mistake that became popular belief due to pope Gregory the Great who conflated three different female figures in the Bible. Fallen woman, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, Martha, and the starving Mary.” And no, I don’t think you are right, Hilary. I don’t think you, I’d have… Mary of Egypt is a totally different saint. She’s my favourite saint. There are two patron saints of prostitutes, of course, one is Mary Magdalene and one is Mary of Egypt. I love Mary of Egypt. She was a prostitute and then decided she wanted to go to the Holy Land and, apparently, she had no money, so she had to work her passage, if that’s not a slightly rude way of putting it, by servicing the sailors all the way to the Holy Land. She got as far as Israel, stepped off the boat, keeled over, and died of exhaustion, and was made a saint. What a way to be made a saint. Yeah, she is a totally different Mary, but I’m not sure, I think I’m not sure you are right about Mary Magdalene.

Q: Oh dear, “What is the meaning of mannerism?”

A: Well, I did try and explain it in my lecture. I don’t think I’ve got time to go into that now.

Q: “How do you compare the magnificent work of Titian with the work of Picasso?”

A: Oh, I think Titian… I think Picasso would, certainly, have liked to be compared with Titian and, probably, Matisse would. Again, that’s a huge question. I don’t think I can really go into it here.

Q: “How often did these artists use live models?”

A: I think they used them a lot.

Q: “You pointed out a painting…” Not Edward V, no, Charles V. “Can you point out why?”

A: Well, it’s softer. You know, I wish I could go back to it. The Seisenegger, it’s very dry, very stiff. And, of course, even in the images I had on the screen, I think you ought to be able to tell the difference, that the Titian has painterly qualities, luscious painterly qualities, and it looks much more alive, even though the Seisenegger was the one that was done from life, it’s the Titian that looks alive.

Yes, “Sumptuous paintings in a sumptuous city.” That’s certainly very true. And thank you all. And I think that’s the end of the questions. And so, Wednesday we will move on to Flemish painting. Goodbye everybody. See you on Wednesday, I hope.

• [Compere] Thank you Patrick. Goodbye everybody.

• Yeah.