7. Titian as Subject in Nineteenth-Century Painting
7.4. Titian‘s Death
The scenes of Titian‘s death and funeral also inspired nineteenth-century artists. That Titian died from the plague in 1576, was a well-known fact in the 19th century. Was he buried in a church? Fatality of this fact, he died from old age, but at the same time from a terrible epidemic, adds to his end a dramatic facet.
Bergeret had represented such a topic, when he exhibited the painting Death of Titian at the Salon in 1833 (currently untraceable).142 Another example of this subject matter is The Last Moment of Titian (Fig. 38) from a British painter George Jones (1786–1869). Jones shows the Venetian master lying on his deathbed and an hourglass on the bedside table recalls the end of Titian‘s life.
The painting follows a long-established genre, the deathbed scene.143 From the
141 Wethey (as note 91), pp. 181-182; Jeremy Wood, ‗Van Dyck‘s ‗Cabinet de Titien‘: The Contents and Dispersal of His Collection,‘ in: The Burlington Magazine 132, p. 689; Carl Depauw and Ger Luijten, Anthony van Dyck as a Printmaker, Amsterdam–New York 1999, pp. 240-248. The etching of Anthony van Dyck had been identified by his original creation in William Hookham Carpenter‘s Pictorial Notices, Consisting of a Memoir of Sir Anthony Van Dyck, London 1844, pp. 127-128.
142 El-Abd (as note 89), pp. 200 and 399.
143 Rosenblum (as note 76), p. 28; Patrick Doorly, The Truth about Art: reclaiming quality, Winchester 2013, p. 105.
mid-eighteenth century onwards, it became once again in vogue and was endowed with moral doctrine to react against the taste of Rococo, and Nicolas Poussin‘s Death of Germanicus (Fig. 39) became a paragon for artists in order to emulate a solemn scene, theatrical emotion, and balanced composition. Painters followed this genre representing episodes from the lives of Greco-Roman heroes but also of historical and contemporary great men.144 Angelica Kauffmann might have been the earliest artist to connect the genre with an anecdote of an old master: in 1778, she displayed The Death of Leonardo da Vinci in the Arms of Francis I at the exhibition of the Royal Academy in London (whereabouts unknown). After Kauffmann‘s pioneering painting, numerous artists adopted the genre to render deathbed scenes of old masters.145
Legend has it that the Palazzo Barbarigo at the Grand Canal in Venice was Titian‘s last residence and studio. While the rumor‘s origins are unknown, several English and French authors of the first half of the nineteenth century accepted it as a fact;146 so did Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury. In the episode Titian Lying in State at the Palazzo Barbarigo (Fig. 40), the painter reposes peacefully on a bed with his right hand putting on the abdomen, and the left hand falling down lifelessly from the bed, which implies the death of the master. Details proliferate in Robert-Fleury‘s pictures.
The green pillow slips from Titian‘s head and a candleholder is lying at the ground, both of which indicate Titian might try to get up or move his body before the final breath.
Titian‘s early religious painting The Assumption of the Virgin (Fig. 41) was hung
144 Rosenblum (as note 76), pp. 28-31, 37-38.
145 Haskell (as note 75), p. 57.
146 Laurence Binyon, The Mind of the Artist Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art, Waiheke Island 2009, p. 131 (1st ed. 1909). Nineteenth-century books mention the rumor can be founed in, such as, Bernard Potocki, Voyage dans une partie de l’Italie, Posen 1825, p. 33; Rembrandt Peale, Notes on Italy, Philadelphia 1831, p. 291; Charles Nodier (ed.), Italie Pittoresque. Tableau historique et descriptif de l’Italie, du Piémont, de la Sardaigne, de Malte, de la Sicile et de la Corse, par ... De Norvins, C. Nodier ... Orné de dessins, etc., Paris 1834, p. 48; Josiah Conder, Narrative of a residence in South Africa ... A new edition. To which is prefixed, A biographical sketch of the author, London 1840, p. 84 (1st ed. 1834).
at the backdrop. In front of the huge canvas, a long candle is situated next Titian‘s bed and is extinguished with a wisp of last smoke rising to the air. The horizontal body of Titian and the vertical columns enclose The Assumption of the Virgin and divides the whole picture into two sections. A pale man at the corner is the victim of the plague. In the further background, a man holds a cross and the other takes a lamp on a gondola.
The Assumption of the Virgin had never been collected at the Palazzo Barbarigo.147 It is no coincidence that the altarpiece appears behind the dead Titian in this painting, for an artist like Robert-Fleury, who was familiar with Renaissance and Titan.148 In fact, the real location of The Assumption of the Virgin is the Church of the Frari, where Titian was buried. Robert-Fleury intended to endow the meaningful religious connotation in this painting. He utilized the iconography of the altarpiece that he arranged the dead Titian right below the Apostles. The master forms the fourth level of the altarpiece and becomes one part of his masterpiece.149 The candle suggests the end of Titian‘s life. The track of smoke bridges Titian and The Assumption of the Virgin to connect the earthly world of Titian with the divine space in the altarpiece. The smoke also stands for the limited life of Titian is transferred into the immortal artistic region. The men carrying with a cross and lamps on gondola could be a metaphor leading the soul of Titian to the City of God. By inserting religious implications, Robert-Fleury gave tribute to the Venetian master. The death of Titian was imbued with
147 The Assumption of the Virgin was completed in 1518 for the high altar of the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. Most of time of this altarpiece should be at the Frari, where Titian was buried. It was only moved to the Gallerie dell‘ Accademia of Venice in 1816 for respire, and was transferred back to the original place at the Frari in 1919, as the World War I went to the end. See the history of collection of this altarpiece in David Rosand, ―Titian in the Frari,‖ in: The Art Bulletin 53, 1971, p. 196; Susanna Biadene (ed.), Titian: Prince of Painters, Munich 1990, p. 172.
148 Eugène Montrosier, Peintres modernes: Ingres, H. Flandrin, Robert-Fleury, vol. 2, Paris 1882, p. 102, 130; ―Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury‖ in: Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online (as note 19)
149 Rober-Fleury could borrow the symbolism from the early Netherlandish paintings. The extinguished candle nearby the bed reminds us the Annunciation of the Mérode Triptych by Robert Campin, the Master of Flémalle, in which a candle on the table going out is a symbol. It means the terrestrial candlelight is replaced by the celestial light. See the researches on the disguised symbol in the Mérode Triptych in: Bernhard Ridderbos, Anne van Buren and Henk van Veen (eds.), Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception, and Research, Los Angeles 2005, p. 19; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Renaissance in the North, New York 1987, p. 8.
Christian sentiment, and was sublimed to a religious level.
In fact, nineteenth-century painters did not have real details about Titian‘s dying breath. Therefore, the contents in George Jones‘s The Last Moment of Titian and Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury‘s Titian Lying in State at the Palazzo Barbarigo depend much on their imagination. Ridolfi‘s account on Titian‘s funeral offered materials for painters. According to Ridolfi, Titian passed away in 1576 due to a violent plague of that time in Venice. The master was entombed at the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. By reason of the mortal disease, people were prohibited from taking place obsequies. However, the great Titian was awarded a privilege from the Venetian State to own a funeral. Venetian artists of young generation had planned to hold a funeral ceremony in a grand manner to pay homage for Titian, but this proposition was not carried out in the end. It is very likely that the proposal was fabricated by Ridolfi, in order to keep pace with Michelangelo‘s funeral in Florence in 1564.150
Although Titian did not acquire a state funeral, the French painter Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Hesse (1806–1879) accomplished the unachievable plan in Funeral Honors for Titian after his Death at Venice during the Plague of 1576 (Fig.
42). Hesse had been to Venice by 1830 and could amass materials of Titian during his trip. Three years later, he showed Funeral Honors for Titian at the Salon of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and gained a first-class medal.151 Hesse shows a procession follows a black banner proceeding at the Piazzetta of San Marco. The dead Titian is well-dressed and lies on a luxurious burial bed. He is lifted by the funeral team and the public are allowed to pay last respects to the master. In front of the crowd, a bishop leads the procession. A worker tries to move away a pale body breaking into the
150 Bondanella (as note 51), pp. 137-138; Humfrey (as note 95), p. 217
151 ―Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste Hesse,‖ in: Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online at
http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T037921pg2#T037924 (accessed January 8, 2015).
funeral march. At the corner of foreground, a set of workers are busying in carrying away the victim of plague by a rough wooden stretcher. At a corner, a sorrowful and disheveled woman weeps for her lover.
Hesse could refer to the fifteenth-century Venetian artist Gentile Bellini‘s (1429–1507) Procession in Piazza San Marco (Fig. 43; 1496). He attempted to represent a great funeral procession passing the Piazzetta of San Marco, where is the most important area of Venice. He shows the Ducal Palace, which was the nucleus of Venetian political power in Renaissance, and he also depicts the landmarks of Venice, two lofty columns installed with the lion of St. Mark and St. Theodore respectively.152 The funeral of Titian also stands for the civil activity and the commemorative ritual in Hesse‘s representation.
However, Hesses also shows people wearing shabby clothes and suffering from the pestilence. They recall the romantic tragedy in The Raft of the Medusa (1818–1819) by the French painter Théodore Géricault (1791–1824). Those poor victims present a striking contrast with the well-dressed Titian and the stately funeral procession, and enhance the Romantic impression of Titian‘s dignity. The splendid pageant directed by Hesse aims to commemorate the great artist. He transformed the nonexistent burial ceremony for Titian into a verisimilar historical event in his painting. Thanks to his imagination, the funeral of Titian takes place in the civic space, and indicates the death of the great Venetian master is transformed into the public aspect instead of the private issue of the Vecellio family.
Hesse‘s Funeral Honors for Titian was so popular by 1833, which was transformed into the engraving plates in books (Fig. 44, 45).153 Furthermore, it could
152 Henry Maguire and Robert S. Nelson (eds), San Marco, Byzantium, and the Myths of Venice, Washington 2010, p. 81.Ronald Shaw-Kennedy, Venice Rediscovered, London 1978, p. 24.
153 The illustrations are founded in : G. Laviron and B. Galbacio, Le Salon de 1833, Paris 1833; Charles Lenormant, Les artistes contemporains: salons de 1831 et 1833, Paris 1833.
be by cause of the printings that the composition of Hesse‘s can be tracked in the succeeding artists. In 1847, an illustrative plate named Funérailles du Titien (Fig. 46), accounts for Titian‘s funeral in 1576 at the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice.154 In the illustration, a burial procession spans across the whole picture. The protagonist Titian is on a coffin platform going to his final sleep, and the pitiful people devastated by epidemic are on the roadside. The composition here seems to reverse Hesse‘s oil canvas, and owns with variation in the setting of background. An Italian painter Enrico Gamba155 also utilized Hesse‘s visual language in Titian’s Funeral (Fig. 47) by 1855, in which the Titian‘s funeral procession is transferred into flotilla marching on water.
From Hesse to Gamba, all of them would like to express a message for nineteenth-century viewers that the great master Titian deserved a splendid final farewell.
The nineteenth-century artists excavated the life of Titian primarily through documents recorded by Vasari and Ridolfi and they were selective in the texts that they chose, ignoring any unfavourable descriptions of their predecessor. Titian‘s shame at reluctantly sharing the reward from Charles V with the sculptor Alfonso Lombardi (1497–1537)156 and the rumor about being jealous of his apprentice Tintoretto, who had been expelled from the workshop,157 were not depicted by nineteenth-century painters in order to sustain his dignified standing. They also neglected to mention the master‘s family and his relationship with its members, not least his son Pomponio, who resisted Titian‘s expectations in taking an ecclesiastical path. Their relationship was
154 Léon Galibert, Historia de la República de Venecia, Paris 1847
155 See biography of Enrico Gamba in: ―Gamba,‖ in: Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online at
http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T030554?q=Gamba&search=quick&pos=1
&_start=1#firsthit (accessed January 8, 2015).
156 Vasari (as note 11), p. 497
157 Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, ―New Rivals,‖in: Frederick Ilchman (as note 121), p. 111.
left only with mutual accusations by the mid 1560s.158 Pomponio‘s untamable temperament made him become the talented but dissolute gambler described in Alfred de Musset‘s novel Fils du Titien.159 It is interesting to notice that the emotional tension between Titian and Pomponio could have been a useful piece of theatrical subject matter for nineteenth century artists; however, they preferred to ignore this topic rather than leaving an unfavourable impression of Titian. Furthermore, it is interesting to notice that the artistic rivalry between the Venetian master and the Tuscan representative Michelangelo, and as well as the anecdote with the Venetian artist Giorgione at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi160 did not raise their concerns.
From the above mentioned works, it can be seen that in the nineteenth-century pictorial interpretations of Titian‘s life, some highly polarized views of the Venetian artist are displayed. As painters presented Titian‘s close connections with influential clients and the great imaginative funeral; on the one hand, they emphasized the master‘s grandeur and the esteem to which he was held by such influential people, waving a victorious banner for art, which could equal, or even surpass, the authorities.
On the other hand, Titian represented an idealised projection to them. They threw their ambitions and dreams under the shadow of the successful master.161 Therefore, in expressing this type of subject matter, they honored historical painting, which was still at the highest level of the academy system, and the episodes of Titian‘s life were transformed into significant moments and were symbolically altered to become a memorial in homage to the master. The nineteenth-century painters intended to elevate their predecessor to the immortal position seen in their paintings.
158 Vasari (as note 111), p. 497; Charles Hope, ―Titian‘s Family and the Dispersal of his Estata,‖ in:
Sylvia Ferino-Pagden (ed.), Late Titian and the Sensuality of Painting, Venice 2008, p. 30.
159 Alfred de Musset, ―Le Fils du Titien,‖ in: Revue des deux mondes 14, 1838, pp. 313-350.
160 According to Vasari, it was a frescoes commission at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Giorgione was congratulated by friends that his work towards the Merceria exceeded the part close to the Grand Canal.
However, the later part was executed by Titian. See the anecdote between Titian and Giorgione in Vasari (as note 111), pp. 491-492.
161 Hofmann (as note 75), p. 236; Haskell (as note 75), p. 80.
While many of the nineteenth-century artists‘ keen eyes were also focused on the contact between Titian, Irene di Spilimbergo and his friends, they exhibited different facets of the master‘s life that the biographers seldom explored. They attempted to look at what roles Titian would take in his daily life as apposed to being a respectable painter. Their intentions were varied and, aside from Antonio Zona‘s The Meeting on Titian and Veronese, were not only about honoring the master. Bizarrely, family issues were completely skipped and although Titian was not frankly portrayed with erotic connotations, the nineteenth-century painters would convey sexual messages through the small details in some of their paintings. They could have been affected by the sensuality particularly in Titian‘s mythological paintings, and they used this sensational impression as representing the master‘s life. They put the modern nineteenth-century spirit into the sixteenth-century subject matter, when they depicted Titian‘s leisure time with friends. They represented Titian‘s private life, which lacks historical records, and created a new type of genre in order to satisfy the viewers‘ curiosity about the unknown aspects of Titian‘s life.
By using the abundant literary source material, the nineteenth century artists weaved together historical facts and fictional plots and gave us some charming representations of Titian. Dual visual representations emerge from these paintings. One lifts the Renaissance master towards the realm of the immortal, and the other treats him as an ordinary person. It is not necessary to judge which view conforms better to the nineteenth-century impression of Titian, neither is it necessary to deem them as incompatible as fire and water. In fact, they are more like mirrors that reflect in each other the simple fact that Titian was both an immortal master as well as an ordinary man. As most of the nineteenth-century painters devoted their main creative effort to Titian‘s social life, Dyce, however, presented the childhood of the Venetian master. His approach is completely different. In order to realizing Dyce‘s representation, the next
chapter will focus on the Victorian painter and his engagement with Titian.