Venus and An Organist and a Little Dog by Titian, 1550
Happy Valentine’s Day!
I never loved Titian so much as when I started noticing his dogs. See more of his dog art masterpieces here and here and here and here.
Tag: 16th century dog art
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Dog Painting Newly Attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder
The Wine of St. Martin's Day, 1565, was recently attributed to the master Flemish painter, Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Micheal Kimmelman of the New York Times looks at why labels matter when it comes to art.
Click on image to see larger version.
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Albrecht Dürer’s Saint Eustace Sells for $216,132
Saint Eustace by Albrecht Dürer, 1501Last night in London at Christie’s Old Masters Print Sale this Albrecht Dürer engraving of Saint Eustace was estimated to sell for $122,160 – $183,240 (£80,000 – £120,000). It exceeded expectations and sold for $216,132 (£145,250).
I love the beautifully rendered Greyhounds and the thin veneer of Christianity applied to this pagan scene — Christ appearing as a stag.
Christie’s lot notes provide the the full story of Saint Eustace, the patron saint of hunters, and insight into the 16th century battle of sculpture vs. paintings. As far as Greyhounds goes, I think Dürer wins this round.
This, largest of all Dürer’s engravings, has always been considered one of his finest. According to the legend Placidus, a general under Emperor Trajan, was out hunting one day when Christ appeared to him in the shape of a white stag which had a radiant crucifix between its antlers. This vision prompted his conversion to Christianity, and he was baptised Eustace. As the patron saint of hunters and one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers he was one of the most popular saints of the 15th and 16th Centuries.
As an artist for whom the study of nature was paramount, the subject of the stag hunt in the forest offered Dürer an opportunity to display his consummate skill in the representation of animals, plants and landscape. Since Leonardo’s writings on the subject – the so-called Paragone – the question of the supremacy of the different artistic media was one of the great disputes in the theory of art and was reiterated in various tracts throughout the 16th Century. One argument in favour of sculpture was that it allowed the artist to show a figure three-dimensionally and from different angles at the same time. By demonstrating that this could also be done in two dimensions painters tried to invalidate this argument.
One of the most admired and best-loved elements in Dürer’s printmaking are the greyhounds in the foreground of the present composition, and commentators cited them as proof of the parity of painting and sculpture, such was the effectiveness with which they were described.
Via Christie’s.
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OMG! Another Titian Dog Art Masterpiece!
Venus with Cupid, Dog and Partridge by Titian, 1550
Right now, Athenians have a rare opportunity to see Titian’s Venus with Cupid, Dog and Partridge on loan from the Uffizi at the Museum of Cycladic Art’s current exhibition From Titian to Pietro de Cortona: Myth, Poetry and the Sacred
The show, mounted with Italian Embassy in Greece, is being held honor of official visit to Greece of the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano. It features 24 Italian 16th and 17th century paintings, including 7 by Titian.
I am in awe of this “new” dog art masterpiece. I must have seen it when I lived in Florence 20 years ago and visited the Uffizi often. But that was before I was a dog person, and before I knew a little dog named Minnie (my parents’ dog) who looks very much like the precocious pup starring this remarkable Venus.
Titian’s dog
My parents’ dog, Minnie
Speaking of Titian’s Venus paintings, did you know about the controversy regarding the *other* Venus at the Uffizi.
The Venus of Urbino by Titian, 1538
Mark Twain, writing in A Tramp Abroad in 1880, was completely horrified by this painting (he thought she was masturbating). But he was even more angry about the double standard he saw in what was permissible in art versus what was permissible in writing:
“You enter, and proceed to that most-visited little gallery that exists in the world–the Tribune–and there, against the wall, without obstructing rag or leaf, you may look your fill upon the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses–Titian’s Venus. It isn’t that she is naked and stretched out on a bed–no, it is the attitude of one of her arms and hand. If I ventured to describe that attitude, there would be a fine howl–but there the Venus lies, for anybody to gloat over that wants to–and there she has a right to lie, for she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges.I saw young girls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw young men gaze long and absorbedly at her; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her charms with a pathetic interest. How I should like to describe her–just to see what a holy indignation I could stir up in the world–just to hear the unreflecting average man deliver himself about my grossness and coarseness, and all that. The world says that no worded description of a moving spectacle is a hundredth part as moving as the same spectacle seen with one’s own eyes–yet the world is willing to let its son and its daughter and itself look at Titian’s beast, but won’t stand a description of it in words. Which shows that the world is not as consistent as it might be.”
But, you’ll note, that Mark Twain writes rather salaciously about what he is not allowed to right about. Clever, as always.
18th century dignitaries and art connoisseurs didn’t seem particularly offended by the other Venus, as evidenced by Johann Zoffany’s La Tribuna degli Uffizi (1772).
La Tibuna delgli Uffizi by Johann Zoffany, 1772
See, there’s nothing to get all riled up about. Just ask Picasso…
The Dream by Pablo Picasso, 1932
Related links:
Titian the Dog Artist
Titian’s Dog Art Returns to the Joslyn Art Museum
