Estelle M. Hurll

“ As we study our little prints, we must bear in mind that the original paintings glow with rich and harmonious color. As far as possible let us try to supply this lost color from our imagination.
Nearly all the notable personages of the time sat to Titian for their portraits,—emperors, queens, and princes, popes, and cardinals, the doges, or dukes, of Venice, noblemen, poets, and fair women. Wearing the costumes of a bygone age, these men and women look out of their canvases as if they were still living, breathing human beings. ”

“ It has been said that every man wears an habitual mask in the presence of his fellows. It is only when he is taken unaware that the mask drops, and the man’s real self looks out of his face. The portrait painter’s art must catch the sitter’s expression in such a moment of unconsciousness. The great artist must be a seer as well as a painter, to penetrate the secrets of human character.
The young man of our picture is one of those reticent natures capable of intense feeling. ”

“ The character of Christ is so many-sided that any painter who tries to represent him has the difficult task of uniting in a single face all noble qualities of manhood. Let us notice what elements of character Titian has made most prominent, and we shall see how much more nearly he satisfies our ideal than other painters.
Refinement and intellectual power impress us first in this countenance: the noble forehead is that of a thinker. The eyes show penetration and insight: we feel how impossible it would be to deceive this man. It is a gentle face, too, but without weakness. ”

“ Titian, too, had not a little taste for literature and the society of the learned. His fine high brow and keen eyes are sufficient evidence that he was a man of intellect. That he was a fond father we have no doubt, and we like to trace the lines of kindliness in the fine old face.
Age cannot quench the old man’s ardor for his art. The brush is still his familiar companion, and will go with him to the end. He holds it here in his right hand, in the attitude of a painter pausing to get the effect of his work. ”

“ The heavy folds of the skirt swirl about the body in the swiftness of the ascent. The rushing air fills the mantle like the sail of a ship. Yet the source of motion is not within the figure itself, for we see the feet resting firmly on the cloud. It is as if she were borne aloft in a celestial chariot composed of an angelic host.
The face is lifted with a look of rapture; the arms are extended in a gesture of exultation. The pose of the head displays the beautiful throat, strong and full like that of a singer. ”

“ It is agreed that no other painter ever united in himself so many qualities of artistic merit. Other painters may have equalled him in particular respects, but “rounded completeness,” quoting another critic’s phrase, is “what stamps Titian as a master.” [1]
To begin with the qualities which are apparent even in black and white reproduction, we are impressed at once with the vitality which informs all his figures. They are breathing human beings, of real flesh and blood, pulsing with life. ”

“ The years have dealt so gently with him that we may still call him a handsome man. Yet the face has the shrunken look of old age, there are deep hollows about the eyes, and the features are sharpened under the withered skin. [92] There is an expression which seems almost like awe in the eyes. The painter gazes absently into space as if piercing beyond the veil which separates this world from the next. The mood does not seem to be one of reminiscence, but rather of grave anticipation. ”

“ It is undoubtedly as a portrait-painter that Titian’s many great qualities meet in their utmost perfection. His feeling for textures, the delicacy with which he painted the hair and the hands; his skill in modelling; his instinct for pose; the infinite variety of his resources, made an incomparable [xi] equipment in the secondary matters of portrait painting. To these he added, as we have seen, the two highest essentials of the art, the power of giving life to his sitter, and the gift of insight into character.
Nature made him a court painter ”

“ We notice a distinct resemblance between the faces of the two maidens, and perhaps this is the painter’s way of telling us that Venus is only Medea’s other self: the voice of the tempter speaks from her own heart. The expression is quite different on the two faces, tender and persuasive in Venus, dreamy and preoccupied in Medea. If we turn again to Ovid for the interpretation of the picture, we may fancy that Venus is describing the proud days when, as Jason’s bride, Medea would journey with him through the cities of Greece. ”

“ As we compare Flora with the other fair women of our collection, we see that her beauty is of a less elegant and aristocratic type than that of the Bella, and less delicate and refined than that of the Empress Isabella. Her face is perhaps too broad to satisfy a connoisseur of beauty, and she is quite plainly of plebeian caste. Like Lavinia her charm is in the healthy vitality which was the special characteristic of the Venetian beauties of the time. The figure glows with warm pulsing life. ”

“ The small head is exquisitely modelled, and the hair is coiled about it in close braids to preserve the round contours corresponding to the faultless curves of cheek and chin. The hair is of golden auburn, waving prettily about the face, and escaping here and there in little tendrils. Over the forehead it forms the same perfect arch which is repeated in the brows. The slender throat is long and round, like the stalk of a flower; the neck and shoulders are white and firm, and shaped in beautiful curves. ”

“ The texture of the leather is skilfully rendered, and harmonizes pleasantly with the serious color scheme of the composition.
Besides the gloves, the daintily ruffled shirt, the seal ring, and the long neck chain, show the sitter to be a young man of fashion. Not that he is in the least a fop, but he belongs to that station in life where fine raiment is a matter of course, and he wears it as one to the manner born. His hands are delicately modelled, but they are not the plump hands of an idler. They are rather flexible and sensitive, with long fingers like the hands of an artist. ”

“ All these qualities kindled the artistic imagination of Titian. In the matron of forty his inner eye caught a vision of the belle of twenty. Thereupon, he wrought an artist’s miracle: he painted pictures of Eleanora as she had looked twenty years before. One of these, and perhaps the most famous, is the Bella of our illustration. [14] The identity of the original is hidden under this simple title, which is an Italian word, meaning the Beauty. An ancient legend tells of a wonderful fountain, by drinking of which a man, though old, might renew his youth and be, like the gods, immortal. ”

“ The skill with which the splendid costume is painted would alone make the picture a great work of art. Philip wears a breastplate and hip pieces of armor, richly inlaid with gold, slashed embroidered hose, as the short trousers are called, white silk tights and white slippers. The collar of the Golden Fleece is the crowning ornament.
The attitude of the prince is full of dignity. He stands in front of a table on which his helmet and gauntlets are laid. The right hand rests on the helmet, and the left holds the hilt of the rapier which hangs at his side. ”

“ Our picture illustrates the scene of Medea’s temptation at the fountain. The tempter is love, in the form of Venus, the Greek goddess represented in the old mythology as the inspirer of the tender passion. She is accompanied by the little love-god Cupid, the mischievous fellow whose bow and arrow work so much havoc in human hearts. The perplexed princess sits beside the fountain, holding her head in the attitude of one listening. Venus leans towards her from the other side and softly pleads the lover’s cause. ”

“ Yet in another mood Titian paints the life of the Holy Family as a pastoral idyl. A sunny landscape, a happy young mother, a laughing baby boy, bring the sacred subject very near to common human sympathies. ”

“ The Man with the Glove is so called for lack of a more definite name. Nothing is told by Titian’s biographers about the original of the portrait, and the mystery gives a certain romantic interest to the picture. Not being limited by any actual facts we can invent a story of our own about the person, or as many stories as we like, each according to his fancy.
The sitter certainly makes a good figure for the hero of a romance. He is young and handsome, well dressed, with an unmistakable air of breeding, and singularly expressive eyes. ”

“ Some years after her marriage Lavinia again sat to her father for her portrait. Her beauty, as we have noted, was not of a lasting kind, and in the passing years her fresh color faded, and she became far too stout for grace. Yet the frank nature always made her attractive, and it is pleasant to see in the kindly face the fulfilment of the happy promise of her girlhood. ”

“ Theirs was a deathless fame on whom the painter conferred the gift of his art.
Titian’s temperament was keenly sensitive to the influences of his environment, and in his extraordinary length of days, Venice passed through various changes, political, social, artistic and religious, which left their mark upon his work. One cannot make a random selection from his pictures and pronounce upon the qualities of his art. The work of his youth, his maturity, his old age, has each a character of its own. ”

“ The artistic qualities of the picture are above praise. There are few, if any, of Titian’s works executed with so much care and delicacy of finish, but without sacrificing anything in the breadth. We recognize the painter’s characteristic touch in the disposition of the draperies, in the delicacy of the hair, the modelling of the hands, and the pose of Christ’s head. The figures have that quality of vitality which we observe in Titian’s great portraits. The color of Christ’s robe is red, and his mantle a deep blue. ”

“ The Assumption of the Virgin was painted at the age of forty, the Pesaro Madonna at fifty, the Presentation of the Virgin in his early sixties, the portrait of Philip II. at about seventy, and St. John the Baptist at eighty. How interesting it would be if we could have a portrait of the man himself painted at each decade!
Titian, however, seems to have been quite lacking in personal vanity. Though a handsome and distinguished-looking man, a fine subject for a portrait, he seldom painted his own likeness. We value the more the fine portrait of our frontispiece painted at the age of eighty-five. ”

“ In this moment of unconsciousness his very soul seems to look forth from his eyes. It is the soul of a poet, though he may not possess the gift of song. He has the poet’s imagination as a dreamer of noble dreams. ”

“ The sky is overcast with clouds. A narrow stream falls over a rocky bed, and in the distance slender trees lift their feathery branches in the air. In Titian’s time landscape painting had not developed into an independent art, but was an important part of figure compositions. Our painter always took great pains with his landscapes, making them harmonize, as does this, with the character of the figures. ”

“ We see that his hand had not lost its cunning in summoning before us the real presence of a sitter, and that he could paint his own likeness as readily as that of another. The portrait shows us the best elements in a man of a many-sided nature. This is Titian the master, whom the world honors as one of the greatest of his kind. ”

“ As we study the face we are interested to read in it what we know of the man’s character and history. Titian was, as we have seen, a man who enjoyed very much the good things of life, and passed most of his days in luxurious surroundings. He was thoroughly a man of the world, at ease in the society of princes and noblemen, and a princely host in his own house. Our portrait shows that his courtly bearing did not fail him in his old age: we can fancy the ceremonious courtesy of his manner. The figure is extended well below the waist, perhaps that we may see how erect the old man is. ”

“ Art has pictured for us many imaginary scenes from the life of Mary. The most familiar and best loved subject is that of her motherhood, where she is seen with her babe in her arms. There are other subjects, less common, showing her as a glorified figure in mid-air as in a vision. One such is that [68] called the Immaculate Conception, which the Spanish painter Murillo so frequently repeated. [23] Another is the Assumption, representing her at her death as borne by angels to heaven. ”

“ Not long after, their cousin Mary came from Nazareth to bring them news of the wonderful babe Jesus promised her by the same angel. He was to be the Messiah whom John was to proclaim. The two women talked earnestly together of the future of their children, and no doubt planned to do all in their power to further the angel’s prediction. The time came when all these strange prophecies were fulfilled. As John grew to manhood he showed himself quite different from other men. He took up his abode in the wilderness, where he lived almost as a hermit. ”

“ We notice with what art the painter has arranged the draperies. From the right shoulder the garment falls in delicate, radiating folds across the figure. Over the garment is thrown a stiff, rose-colored brocade mantle, contrasting pleasantly with the former both in color and texture. ”

“ The figures in the picture seem to be taken from common every-day life. Some Venetian boatman may have been the painter’s model for St. Christopher, whose attitude is similar to that of a gondolier plying his oar. The child, too, is a child of the people, a sturdy little fellow, quite at ease in his perilous position. We shall understand better the range [36] of Titian’s art by contrasting these more commonplace figures with the refined and elegant types we see in some of our other illustrations. ”