Only one Old Master in the history of Western art has NEVER fallen out of fashion.

The long-lived Venetian who has influenced other artists and commanded the highest prices in every generation since his death in 1576.

He was the Ideal, that all others sought to emulate.

His ravishing colors, his noble figures and the persuasiveness of his compositions makes one realize why he has had such a continuing influence over the centuries.
=======================================================
AN OLD MASTER WHOSE WORK IS EVER YOUNG

Titian: Catalog of the Exhibition at the National Gallery, London, Edited by David Jaffé, National Gallery/Yale University Press: 192 pp., $39.95 Tiziano: Catalog of the Exhibition at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

Los Angeles Times
By Theodore K. Rabb
Theodore K. Rabb is the author of "Renaissance Lives: Portraits of an Age."
August 17, 2003

Only one Old Master in the history of Western art has never fallen out of fashion.

However much we may admire them today, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rubens, Vermeer, Rembrandt and Caravaggio have all suffered periods of neglect and indifference.

As late as the 1950s, the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City could snap up a masterpiece by the unappreciated Caravaggio because larger museums weren't interested. That was never true of Titian, the long-lived Venetian who has influenced other artists and commanded the highest prices in every generation since his death in 1576.

Why has he held this unique position? Why is it that so many who followed, such as the Spaniard Velázquez, regarded him as the ideal they sought to emulate? Two exhibitions in Europe this summer — one, including about 40 works, was at the National Gallery in London until mid-May; the other, with 65 works, is at the Prado in Madrid until Sept. 7 — seem to take the reverence for their subject for granted. But the questions remain, and if the works themselves, rather than the accompanying catalogs, offer the most persuasive answers, at least one must be grateful for the opportunity to seek those answers amid the riches that have been assembled.

The London show, displayed in the crowded underground area that has become the site of the gallery's major exhibitions, had a hard time making the case. And the catalog, a relatively straightforward recounting of Titian's life, portraits and painting technique, rarely addresses larger issues. About the most ringing evocation of Titian's fame is the comment that "his greatest contribution was to extend the expressive range of oil-based pigment." But the work itself conveyed the power of the master. Despite the subdued light, his ravishing colors, his noble figures and the persuasiveness of his compositions made one realize why he has had such a continuing influence over the centuries.

The Madrid show, larger, more spacious and bathed in natural light, allowed the impressions to flower. The Prado has 35 Titians of its own, thanks to the Habsburgs' passion for his work. Five more are in and around Madrid, and 25 foreign loans made this one of the most comprehensive assemblages of his art one is ever likely to see.

Although the Madrid catalog does little more than its British counterpart to suggest why Titian has been so widely appreciated for so long, it is certainly more expansive. There is some overlap with the London essays, but there are more contributions here; the text is in both Spanish and English; and the illustrations are far more numerous and brilliant. The National Gallery's publication is easier to hold and much cheaper (about $16 if you buy it at the gallery), but the Prado's is a more fully realized and appropriately lavish tribute. Above all, the current exhibition is the best place to ponder at length the reasons for Titian's enduring appeal.

A fundamental source of his popularity — his use of color — is apparent as soon as one sees the paintings. It is fitting that no other artist's name is also that of a color: the glowing red that is one of Titian's trademarks and lights up room after room. And he used it not merely to give richness to a scene but also to focus the viewer's attention. In a desolate "Entombment of Christ," for instance, he extends the arm of Joseph of Arimathea, who is holding the body, well beyond its possible actual length in order to create a splash of red from Joseph's sleeve right at the heart of the scene: next to the dead white hand, with its own splash of red, the blood from the crucifixion nail. Titian regularly distorts physical reality for effect; here the distortion enables color to tie the composition together.

Of course, it is not just the reds that dazzle. There are also radiant blues (often the Virgin's robe, notably in that same "Entombment"), greens and browns, and luminous whites. Even Michelangelo, who haughtily complained "that these Venetians are not taught from the beginning to draw well, that they do not apply themselves better," admired Titian's use of color. And it is especially notable in the creamy flesh of his nudes, one of the specialties that made Titian a continuing inspiration for later artists.

The first lush example at both exhibitions is in a "Bacchanal" commissioned by the Duke of Ferrara for a room that, in its original form (reconstituted in London), must have felt like an act of homage to the human body. Even among the dozens of nudes, however, the provocative sleeping nymph in the "Bacchanal" proclaims a sensuality that has been rarely matched (though much imitated) in Western art. The painting hangs, as it did in Ferrara, next to "The Feast of the Gods" by his teacher, Giovanni Bellini (on which Titian also worked), and it makes the semiclothed sleeping nymph in the latter seem tame — a comparison that Titian may well have expected viewers to make.

A room in the Prado elaborates on his mastery, with two versions of a naked Danaë reclining on her bed as Zeus visits her in the form of a shower of coins; a ravishing Venus and Adonis; two versions of a reclining Venus with an organ player; and (most famous and influential of all) the Urbino Venus, presented to the viewer in all her glory. So many of these nudes were bought by Philip II of Spain that the great art historian Erwin Panofsky used to refer to that austere king as one of the great connoisseurs of the female form in Europe.

Titian applied his ability to represent the body not merely to create canvases of eye-catching beauty. What is notable in his portraits and his religious art is the additional element of psychological insight. With the possible exception of Holbein in England, Titian was the most sought-after portraitist in the Europe of his day. And in creating character he was without peer. The masterpiece of the genre, which was included in both exhibitions, is his portrait of Pope Paul III. One is almost inclined to wonder how the pontiff allowed himself to be shown thus: as a shrewd and suspicious old man, one hand clutching the purse from which he distributed bounty — an ambiguous accessory that may hint at his notorious nepotism. Even more devastating is Titian's portrait of the old man with his two grandsons (which hangs next to it in Naples but, sadly, was not on view), a painting that bristles with so much tension that Titian may not have been allowed to finish it. Paul was a Farnese, a family famous for its military skills, and it was largely as a result of his astute policies that the church's Counter-Reformation proved so successful in the fight against Protestantism. After seeing Titian's portrait, one begins to understand why this pope was so formidable an opponent.

Not all the portraits are this effective. A depiction of a recently deceased empress is flat and unconvincing, perhaps because Titian had not had a chance to study her in person. But a 2-year-old girl from the affluent Strozzi family with her dog is an extraordinary evocation of charm and innocence, almost the complete antithesis of Paul III. Nearby, the aristocrats and patricians of the day proclaim their untroubled superiority, and even the self-portraits, though more muted (the example in Madrid reminds one of Rembrandt decades before his time), still emphasize the wealth and standing the artist himself had achieved. Again and again, one feels one has come to know Titian's subjects, whether a thoughtful clockmaker or two angry young bravos about to come to blows. (The emotion spills out of the latter painting despite the distraction of an astonishing red ruffled sleeve that dominates the canvas.)

With royalty Titian seemed more discreet. There was no mistaking the authority and the riches that kings conveyed, but there is little plumbing of character. Instead there is the creation of the standard of grandeur by which royalty and power could be judged. The enormous equestrian portrait of Emperor Charles V, in particular, became the model for kings, ministers and warriors for centuries. To make the point, in Madrid (from which it cannot travel) the picture is placed so that one can see at the same time, in the Velázquez room alongside the exhibition, the Spaniard's variation on the theme in his portrayal of the royal minister Olivares.

All of these skills came together in Titian's religious works. To the elegance, strength and color of the saints, Madonnas and biblical figures he undertook throughout his career, there was added, as he grew older, a somber mood, a sense of drama, that foreshadows Caravaggio. A vigorous, confident John the Baptist becomes, 30 years later, though in similar pose, darker and self-absorbed. We see unmitigated horror, too, as St. Lawrence is martyred on a burning grill or as, a few years later, the mythic figure of Marsyas is flayed alive. St. Jerome, yearning for salvation and close to despair, holds the stone with which he beats himself in contrition. And Christ's sorrows become ever more intense, even when he is fully lighted in brilliant blue and red at one corner of an otherwise dim, dark-brown "Agony in the Garden."

The evocation of deep human emotion sets these works apart, and it may be that the absence of real feeling is what makes Titian's allegories (which he rarely painted, possibly for this reason) seem so tame by comparison. But one aspect of his art remains consistently remarkable, whatever the ostensible theme: his landscapes. Here Titian set a standard that none of his imitators — even the Impressionists for whom it was a central concern — exceeded.

Whenever you go outdoors in Titian, you can tell, as had never before been the case in Western art, exactly what the weather is like and usually also the time of day. Unlike Raphael's idealized scenery and skies, here you are unmistakably in a real setting: The clouds are scudding past, and there may even be a wind blowing. Shafts of sunlight illuminate the very air, and foliage rustles in the trees. Just as Titian was able to suggest that a dog was wagging its tail or make painted fabric (as his friend Pietro Aretino put it) seem more real than the fabric itself, so he could make nature come alive. One suspects that this alone would have endeared him to every generation that followed.

Yet there was still one more quality that inspired his successors. Unlike any previous artist, Titian was accepted by his society not merely as a highly skilled craftsman but as a member of the aristocracy. Emperor Charles V gave him a title of nobility, which made it official; what was more telling was that in his native Venice he lived like a patrician, in a splendid palazzo with a lovely garden. For a village boy from the mountains near Venice, apprenticed in the workshop that cut mosaics for St. Mark's Basilica and then taken on as a student by the leading Venetian painters of the early 16th century, the heady ascent into noble circles demonstrated the new status of art in the Renaissance. That Rubens, Van Dyck and Velázquez should have been similarly elevated a century later merely confirmed the example Titian had set. It is true that wealth and status did not come unsought: Titian was ambitious and knew how to advance his own interests. But there is no denying that the eminence he achieved helped transform the status of the artist and inspired all who followed.

It may be a long way from Los Angeles to Madrid, but there are few experiences in the 6,000 intervening miles that are likely to be quite as enlivening and instructive as the Prado exhibition.

One substitute for the journey would be leisurely perusal of the Prado catalog, but better yet would be visits to the Getty and Norton Simon museums, whose five Titians represent the gamut of his art: a version of the lush "Venus and Adonis," a male nude, a pastoral scene, a portrait and a Madonna. Even a glimpse offers a chance to join the many, across more than four centuries, who have made Titian one of the central icons of Western civilization.

calendarlive.com: An Old Master whose work is ever young
http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/
cl-bk-rabb17aug17,2,4147205.story?coll=cl-bookreview