Self-Portrait is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Italian painter Titian. Dating to about 1560, when Titian would have been over 70 years old, it is the later of his two surviving[1] self-portraits. The painting is a realistic and unflattering depiction of the physical effects of old age, and as such shows none of the self-confidence of his earlier self-portrait (c. 1546–47) now in Berlin. That painting shows Titian in three-quarter view in an alert pose.[2]
Titian looks remote, aged and gaunt, staring into the middle distance, seemingly lost in thought.[3] Yet the portrait projects dignity, authority and the mark of a master painter.
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Velázquez, Vulcan's Forge
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Mona Lisa
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Art II: Renaissance & Baroque 1400–1800, with Rick Steves
Transcription
(piano playing) Dr. Zucker: We're in Madrid at the Prado and we're looking at a Velazquez. A large painting, this is the Vulcan Forge. It's been described by some of our historian's as a kind of burlesque actually. Dr. Harris: Here's Apollo, here we can see the God of the Sun and the God of Poetry with the halo on his head on the left who's here telling Vulcan, Dr. Zucker: A suit of armor. Dr. Harris: ... and is very hard at work all day and Apollo has just come to tell him that his wife, Venus, has been having an affair with Mars, the God of War. Dr. Zucker: Now, just look at the attitudes of those two faces, forget about the rest of the painting for just a moment. Apollo, his back arches, his head is up, he's rather full of himself actually. Dr. Harris: Yeah. Dr. Zucker: As he has this very powerful message to, sort of, almost scold Vulcan with. Vulcan looks horrified and dangerous. He's holding this red hot metal in one hand, he's got a hammer in the other and it looks like he's ready to just strike anything. Dr. Harris: Look at his body, he's got this beautiful torso, muscles, and these ripples and his abdomen, but his face has that kind of Carvaggio feel Dr. Zucker: Of this world. Dr. Harris: ... beautiful. He's got this ideally beautiful body, in fact all of the male figures have ideal bodies as though Velazquez was looking at Ancient Greek and Roman sculpture and looking at the artists of the Renaissance, maybe Michelangelo and also looking at the art of Carvaggio. Dr. Zucker: But the hands are different aren't they? Dr. Harris: They are. Dr. Zucker: They're not so idealized ... Dr. Zucker: ... as you pointed out, in fact the heads are incredibly naturalistic even though they're painted in a fairly loose manner. Dr. Harris: There's this conflict in this painting between this kind of realism and down to earthness in the figures and what they're doing, and their gestures and the emotions that they convey, but also this sense of that they're kind of standing like classical sculptures and their bodies look like classical sculptures. Dr. Zucker: Here's the thing is that I don't think the French or the Italian's would have rendered an important mythological subject with this much, almost comedy involved, right? Dr. Harris: Yeah. Dr. Zucker: Look at the man who is second from the right, he looks sort of astonished, literally absurd. There is this kind of direct human, sort of sense of conflict and humor that seems very debasing in some way, really not treating the classical with the honor that it's usually accorded. Dr. Harris: At the same time, though, this looks like an academic exercise because we have the three male figures in the center shown from three different points of view. The one on the left, Vulcan, shown frontal. The next one shown from behind, the third one shown in profile and the last figure on the right shown foreshortened and coming out toward us. Dr. Zucker: Those first three almost like ... if they were female figures, like the three Graces. Dr. Harris: Exactly, it looks very orderly and composed and balanced and a little bit like a performance for maybe possible future patrons. I mean, here's Velazquez, he's still relatively young, he's made a trip to Rome at the urging of Rubens and perhaps demonstrating his skill, as an artist who can paint the male nude. Dr. Zucker: It certainly shows an artist who's willing to reinvent or push the boundaries of the ways in which stories are told. (piano playing)
Description
Titian is dressed in simple but expensive clothes. In the lower left corner of the canvas he holds a paintbrush.[3] Although the presence of the paintbrush is understated, it is the element that gives legitimacy to his implied status. Titian gave no indication as to his craft or profession in the Berlin portrait or any other earlier works; indeed this is one of the earliest self-portraits in western art in which the artist reveals himself as a painter. Titian's influence was such that the work led to numerous self-portraits by later generations of artists, including Velázquez and Goya, who in, respectively, Las Meninas (1656) and Charles IV of Spain and His Family (1800–1801) depicted themselves in the act of painting.[4]
The portrait is composed of deep shades of rich and distinguished black and brown, with small touches of white around his face and hair, and on his neckline and chain.[5] Given the relatively flat pictorial plane, the viewer's attention is drawn to the sitter's sharp facial features: his high forehead, hooked nose, long beard and penetrating, deeply set eyes.[6] Here, Titian's command of paint and shade marks a high point of his late period, and while the physical charisma seen in the Berlin picture has been diminished by age, it is now replaced with a sense of authority.[6]
Titian was keenly aware of how others perceived him, and sought to control his reputation by keeping to a minimum public knowledge of his life.[7] Giorgio Vasari noted that by this stage in his life Titian had amassed enough wealth to not depend on commissioned work, or be beholden to any patron.[8] His self-portrait was intended to enhance how he was viewed by others. It draws attention to both his advanced age and—through his fine clothes and portrait in profile (a view then reserved for only the most noble)—his status.[3]
Titian inserted a similar self-portrait in which he wore a skull cap in his The Virgin and Child with Saints Titian and Andrew, which he intended for his tomb in Pieve di Cadore.[8]
See also
References
Sources
- Areti, Pietro. Titian's portraits through Aretino's lens. Pennsylvania State University, 1995. ISBN 0-271-01339-7
- Classen, Albrecht. Old age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Walter de Gruyter, 2007. ISBN 3-11-019548-8
- Enenkel, K. A. E. Modelling the Individual: Biography and Portrait in the Renaissance. Rodopi B.V.Editions, 1998. ISBN 90-420-0782-6
- Hope, Charles & Fletcher, Jennifer & Dunkerton, Jill. Titian. National Gallery London, 2003. ISBN 1-85709-904-4
- Kaminski, Marion. Titian. Ullmann, 2007. ISBN 978-3-8331-3776-1
This page was last edited on 1 April 2024, at 08:59