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
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