A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Clara Erskine Clement Waters (the best books of all time txt) 📗

When the painter returned to Venice he was loaded with honors and riches. He bought a new house at Berigrande, opposite the island of Murano; it commanded fine views and its garden was beautiful. The landscapes of his pictures soon grew better than they had been, and no wonder, when he could always see the Friuli Alps in the distance with their snow-capped peaks rising to the clouds; nearer him was the Murano, like another city with its towers and domes, and then the canals, which at night were gay with lighted gondolas bearing fair ladies hither and thither. Here Titian entertained many people, and some of them were exalted in station. The house was called “Casa Grande,” and on one occasion, when a cardinal and others invited themselves to dine with him, Titian flung a purse to his steward, saying, “Now prepare a feast, since all the world dines with me.”

While living at “Casa Grande,” the artist saw the most glorious years of his life. It seemed that every person of note in all Europe, both men and women, desired their portraits at his hand. One only, Cosmo I., Grand Duke of Florence, refused to sit to him. If these pictures could be collected together, most of the famous persons of his time would be represented in them.

After he was sixty years old Titian made a second journey to Ferrara, Urbino, and Bologna. This time he painted a portrait of Charles V., with a favorite dog by his side. After this, in 1545, at an invitation from Pope Paul III., the great master went to Rome; while there he painted many wonderful pictures—among them, one of the pope with his two grandsons was very remarkable; it is now in the Museum of Naples. He left Rome when he was sixty-nine years old.

In 1548 Charles V. summoned Titian to Augsburg, and while there made him a count, and gave him a yearly pension of two hundred gold ducats. The emperor was very fond of Titian, and spent a good deal of time with him. On one occasion the painter dropped his brush; the emperor picked it up, and returned it to him. The etiquette of courts forbade any one to receive such a service from the sovereign, and Titian was much embarrassed, when Charles said, “Titian is worthy to be served by Cæsar,” this being one of the great ruler’s titles. Charles continued his favors to Titian through life, and when he resigned his crown, and retired to the monastery of Yuste, he took nine pictures by this master into his solitude. One of these, a portrait of the Empress Isabella, was so hung that the emperor gazed upon it when dying; this is now in the museum at Madrid, where are also many fine works by Titian, for Philip II. was his patron as his father had been.

When eighty-five years old he finished his wonderful picture of the “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence” for the Church of the Jesuits in Venice, and his old age was one of strength and mental clearness. Though he had seen great prosperity and received many honors, he had not escaped sorrow. After the death of his wife, his sister Orsa, who was very dear to him, had kept his house; she too sickened and died; his son Pomponio was a worthless fellow, and caused him much grief; Lavinia had married, and the old man was left with Orazio alone, who was a dutiful son. He also was an artist, but painted so frequently on the same canvas with his father that his works cannot be spoken of separately.

At length Titian’s work began to show his years, and some one told him that his “Annunciation” did not resemble his usual pictures. He was very angry, and, seizing a pencil, wrote upon it, “Tizianus fecit fecit”—meaning to say by this, “Truly, Titian did this!” When he was ninety-six years old he was visited by Henry III. of France, attended by a train of princes and nobles. The aged painter appeared with such grace and dignity as to excite the admiration of all, and when the king asked the price of some pictures, Titian presented them to him as one sovereign might make a gift to another who was his equal, and no more.

In 1576 the plague broke out in Venice, and both Titian and Orazio fell victims to it. Naturally the man of ninety-eight years could not recover, and, though Orazio was borne off to the hospital and cared for as well as possible, he also died. After Titian was left alone robbers entered his house while he still lived, and carried away jewels, money, and pictures. He died August 27th, and all Venice mourned for him.

There was a law that no person who died of the plague in Venice should be buried within the city; but Titian was so much honored and beloved that exception was made, and he was buried in the Church of Santa Maria Gloriosa de Frari; or as it is usually called, “the Frari.” He had painted a great picture of the Assumption for this church, which has since been removed to the Academy of Venice; but another work of his, called the Pesaro altar-piece, still remains near his grave. His burial-place is marked by a simple tablet, inscribed thus: “Here lies the great Tiziano di Vecelli, rival of Zeuxis and Apelles.”

A little more than two centuries after his death the citizens of Venice determined to erect a monument to Titian, and Canova made a design for it; but political troubles interfered, and prevented the execution of the plan. In 1852 the Emperor of Austria, Ferdinand I., placed a costly monument near his grave; it consists of a Corinthian canopy beneath which is a sitting statue of the painter, while several other allegorical figures are added to increase its magnificence. This monument was dedicated with imposing ceremonies, and it is curious to note that not far away from it the sculptor Canova is buried, and his own monument is made from the design which he made for that of Titian.

Some writers consider the “Entombment of Christ,” in the Manfrini Palace, as the greatest work of Titian. At all events, it is the best existing representation of this subject, and is a picture which has had a great effect upon art; its chief feature is the general expression of sorrow which pervades the whole work.

Titian gave a new importance to landscape-painting by making backgrounds to his pictures from natural scenery, and that not as if it was merely for the sake of a background, but in a manner which showed his love for Nature, and, in fact, he often rendered it with poetical significance.

The works of Titian are very seldom sold. One subject which he oftentimes repeated was that of “Danäe” with the shower of gold falling about her; one of these was purchased by the Emperor of Russia for six hundred thousand francs. One of the most important of his religious pictures was that of “St. Peter Martyr;” this was burned in the Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Venice in 1868. An excellent copy of it had been for a long time in the Museum of Florence, and this was presented to the Venetians in order to repair their loss as far as possible. Victor Amadeus of Sardinia presented nine pictures by Titian to the Duke of Marlborough, and these were all destroyed in 1861 when the château of Blenheim was burned. Kugler says: “In the multifariousness of his powers Titian takes precedence of all other painters of his school; indeed, there is scarcely a line of art which in his long and very active life he did not enrich.” His last work was not quite completed by himself, and is now in the Academy of Venice. It is a Pietà, and although the hand of ninety-eight years guided the brush uncertainly, yet it has the wonderful light this master threw around his figures, and the whole is conceived with his accustomed animation.

The pupils and followers of Titian were too numerous to be spoken of one by one, and none of them were so great as to require their mention in detail here; yet they were so good that, while the other schools of Italy were decreasing in importance during the sixteenth century, that of Venice was flourishing, and some great masters still existed there. Among these was Jacopo Robusti (1512-1594), who was called, and is best known as Tintoretto, which name was given him because his father was a dyer. He studied under Titian for a time, and then he attempted to follow Michael Angelo, and it is said that his motto was, “The coloring of Titian, the drawing of Michael Angelo.” His best pictures are slightly treated, and others are coarse and unfinished in the manner of painting. His portraits seem to be his best works, probably because they are more carefully finished.

Several works of his are simply enormous; one is seventy-four by thirty feet; the school of St. Roch has fifty-seven large pictures by him, in many of which the figures are of life size. His two most famous works are the “Miracle of St. Mark,” in the Academy of Venice, and the “Crucifixion,” in the school of St. Roch. The last is, for every reason, his best work; there are crowds of people in it, on foot and on horseback, while their faces show every possible kind of expression, and their movements are infinitely varied. The immense painting mentioned above is in the Doge’s Palace, and is called “Paradise.”