Painters From Italy

"Every great work of art should be considered like any work of nature. First of all from the point of view of its aesthetic reality and then not just from its development and the mastery of its creation but from the standpoint of what has moved and agitated its creator."

"There's no doubt but that without this liberté, égalité and fraternité there could not have been a Monet, Modigliani, Picasso, or Giacometti."

"Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese absolutely enchanted me, for they took away all sense of subject. ... It was the poetry of color which I felt, procreative in its nature, giving birth to a thousand things which the eye cannot see, and distinct from their cause."

"There are three Venetians that are never separated in my mind — Titian, Veronese, and Tintoret."

"I had not thought that I was doing wrong; I had never taken so many things into consideration."

"Among the Renaissance masters, Titian, after he free himself from the influence of his teacher, , was perhaps the most nearly akin to us in his conception of oil painting. This kinship is... objectified... in the freedom of his brush stroke, the broad treatment of details, and the lack of attention to non-essential paraphernalia. Also, the conscious use of tonal values—i.e., variations of the same color—... contrasts with the coloristic ideas of the painters who used their colors with little tonal graduation. Another important characteristic... is the fuzzy, blurred appearance of the contour, which is not unlike the... Impressionists. Only the brownish patina... and the absence of certain color combinations in which we delight today, make them look different from our own paintings."

"Titian's preferred painting ground was of a red color, and in instances where he did not employ a light , his paintings suffered considerable darkening. Titian never painted directly on the white ground and his paintings... apparently do not carry a multi-colored but rather a neutral underpainting. Glazings on Titian's paintings are not abundant. Only in instances when a color, such as madder lake or , did not lend itself to another application were glazes used. However... glazes might have been removed from some... paintings... during the many cleanings... [I]t is probable that the use of nut oil, which was favored by Italian painters of his time, was responsible for the embrittlement of the paint film. might also have contributed to the darkening... I disagree with those who assert that Titian and El Greco painted on a underpainting."

"This is to show the world that I can paint like Titian. [A big drawing of a rectangle] Only technical details are missing."

"Thus, Titian is not soft enough for the sensualist, —Correggio suits him better; Titian is not defined enough for the formalist, —Leonardo suits him better; Titian is not pure enough for the religionist, —Raphael suits him better; Titian is not polite enough for the man of the world, —Vandyke suits him him better; Titian is not forcible enough for the lover of the picturesque, —Rembrandt suits him better."

"Titian's supremacy above all the other Venetians, except Tintoret[to] and Veronese, consists in the firm truth of his portraiture, and more or less masterly understanding of the nature of stones, trees, men, or whatever else he took in hand to paint; so that, without some correlative understanding in the spectator, Titian's work, in its highest qualities, must be utterly dead and unappealing to him."

"Other Venetians may, in one or the other way, more irresistibly enlist our sympathies, or may shine out for the moment more brilliantly in some special branch of their art; yet, after all, we find ourselves invariably comparing them to Titian, not Titian to them, taking him as the standard for the measurement of even his greatest contemporaries and successors. .. .He is the greatest painter of the sixteenth century, just because, being the greatest colorist of the higher order, and in legitimate mastery of the brush second to none, he makes the worthiest use of his unrivaled accomplishment, not merely to call down the applause due to supreme pictorial skill and the victory over self-set difficulties, but, above all, to give the fullest and most legitimate expression to the subjects which he presents, and through them to himself."

"Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese absolutely enchanted me, for they took away all sense of subject.. ..It was the poetry of color which I felt, procreative in its nature, giving birth to a thousand things which the eye cannot see, and distinct from their cause."

"It was the habit of Titian to paint pictures for the places they were intended to fill, and in this he fol- lowed the traditions of all the schools. Sketching and laying in the subjects so far as he was able in his workshop at home, he took the canvas to the spot in which it was to hang, and finished it there."

"When Titian or Tintoret look at a human being, they see at a glance the whole of its nature, outside and in; all that it has of form, of color, of passion, or of thought; saintliness, and loveliness; fleshly body, and spiritual power; grace, or strength, or softness, or whatsoever other quality, those men will see to the full, and so paint, that, when narrower people come to look at what they have done, every one may, if he chooses, find his own special pleasure in the work. The sensualist will find sensuality in Titian; the thinker will find thought; the saint, sanctity; the colourist, colour; the anatomist, form; and yet the picture will never be a popular one in the full sense, for none of these narrower people will find their special taste so alone consulted, as that the qualities which would ensure their gratification shall be sifted or separated from others; they are checked by the presence of the other qualities which ensure the gratification of other men. Thus, Titian is not soft enough for the sensualist, — Correggio suits him better; Titian is not defined enough for the formalist, — Leonardo suits him better; Titian is not pure enough for the religionist, — Raphael suits him better; Titian is not polite enough for the man of the world,— Van Dyke suits him better; Titian is not forcible enough for the lover of the picturesque,— Rembrandt suits him better. All are great men, but of inferior stamp, and therefore Van Dyke is popular, and Rembrandt is popular, but nobody cares much at heart about Titian; only there is a strange under-current of everlasting murmur about his name which means the deep consent of all great men that he is greater than they — the consent of those who, having sat long enough at his feet, have found in that restrained harmony of his strength there are indeed depths of each balanced power more wonderful than those separate manifestations in inferior painters: that there is a softness more exquisite than Correggio's, a purity loftier than Leonardo's, a force mightier than Rembrandt's, a sanctity more solemn even than Raphael's.. ..There are three Venetians that are never separated in my mind — Titian, Veronese, and Tintoret. They all have their own unequalled gifts, and Tintoret especially has imagination and depth of soul which I think renders him indisputably the greatest man; but, equally indisputably, Titian is the greatest painter; and therefore the greatest painter who ever lived."

"On the 17th of November, 1520, Alfonso was induced to write to his agent Tebaldi to remind Titian of his promise, and as this letter very clearly illustrates a change of tone in the Duke's communications to the painter, it deserves to be quoted: "Messer Jacomo. Make it your business to speak with Titian and remind him that he made promises when leaving Ferrara which he has not thought fit as yet to keep. Amongst other things he said he would paint a canvas which we expect to receive, and as we do not deserve that he should fail in his duty, exhort him to proceed so that we shall not have cause to be angry with him, and let means be found to obtain our canvas immediately.""

"We painters use the same license as poets and madmen."

"We find the following words:— "Whether it is the human figure, and animal, or even inanimate objects, there is nothing, however unpromising in appearance, but may be raised into dignity, convey sentiment, and produce emotion, in the hands of a painter of genius. What was said of Virgil, that he threw even the dung about the ground with an air of dignity, may be applied to Titian; whatever he touched, however naturally mean, and habitually familiar, by a kind of magic he invested with grandeur and importance." —No, not by magic, but by seeking and finding in individual nature, and combined with details of every kind, that grace and grandeur and unity of effect which Sir Joshua supposes to be a mere creation of the artist's brain! Titian's practice was, I conceive, to give general appearances with individual forms and circumstances. Sir Joshua's theory goes too often, and in its prevailing bias, to separate the two things as inconsistent with each other, and thereby to destroy or bring into question that union oi striking effect with accuracy of resemblance, in which the essence of sound art (as far as relates to imitation) consists."

"There is nothing strained or repulsive in his character. His letters to princes and to ministers concerning his pictures and his pensions contain that degree of humility which then denoted the savoir-vivre of a subject. He takes men well and he takes life well; that is to say, that he enjoys life like other men, without either excess or baseness. He is no rigorist; his correspondence with Aretino reveals a boon companion, eating and drinking daintily and heartily, appreciative of music, of elegant luxury, and the society of pleasure-seeking women. He is not violent, nor tormented by immeasurable and dolorous conceptions; his painting is healthy, exempt from morbid questionings and from painful complications; he paints incessantly, without turmoil of the brain and without passion during his whole life. He commenced while still a child, and his hand was naturally obedient to his mind. He declares that "his talent is a special grace from heaven;" that it is necessary to be thus endowed in order to be a good painter, for otherwise "one cannot give birth to any but imperfect works;" that in this art "genius must not be agitated." Around him beauty, taste, education, the talents of others, reflect back on him as from a mirror the brightness of his own genius."

"It is the intense personal character which, I think, gives the superiority to Titian's portraits over all others, and stamps them with a living and permanent interest. Of other pictures you tire, if you have them constantly before you; of his, never. For other pictures have either an abstracted look, and you dismiss them, when you have made up your mind on the subject as a matter of criticism; or an heroic look, and you cannot be always straining your enthusiasm; or an insipid look, and you sicken of it. But whenever you turn to look at Titian's portraits, they appear to be looking at you; there seems to be some question pending between you, as though an intimate friend or inveterate foe were in the room with you; they exert a kind of fascinating power; and there is that exact resemblance of individual nature which is always new and always interesting, because you cannot carry away a mental abstraction of it, and you must recur to the object to revive it in its full force and integrity. I would as soon have Raphael's, or most other pictures, hanging up in a collection, that I might pay an occasional visit to them: Titian's are the only ones that I should wish to have hanging in the same room with me for company!"

"There is no greater name in Italian art — therefore no greater in art — than that of Titian. If the Venetian master does not soar as high as Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo, those figures so vast, so mysterious, that clouds even now gather round their heads and half veil them from our view; if he has not the divine suavity, the perfect balance, not less of spirit than of answering hand, that makes Raphael an appearance unique in art, since the palmiest days of Greece; he is wider in scope, more glowing with the life-blood of humanity, more the poet-painter of the world and the world's fairest creatures than any one of these."

"Titian was characterized by this, that he painted flesh in which the blood appeared to mantle, whilst the art of the painter was merged in the power of a creator. He imagined forms of grander proportions, of more shiny impast[o], of more harmonious hues than his competitors. With incomparable skill he gave tenderness to flesh by transitions of half tone and broken contrasted colours. He moderated the fire of Giorgione, whose strength lay in resolute action, fanciful movement, and a mysterious artifice in disposing shadows contrasting darkly with hot red lights, blended, strengthened, or blurred so as to produce the semblance of exuberant life."

"Raphael and Titian are two names which stand the highest in our art, — one for drawing, the other for painting. It is to Titian we must turn our eyes to find excellence with regard to color, and light and shade, in the highest degree. He was both the first and the greatest master of this art. By a few strokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of whatever object he attempted; and produced, by this alone, a truer representation than his master Giovanni Bellini, or any of his predecessors, who finished every hair. His great care was to express the general color, to preserve the masses of light and shade, and to give by opposition the idea of that solidity which is inseparable from natural objects. When those are preserved, though the work should possess no other merit, it will have in a proper place its complete effect; but where any of these are wanting, however minutely labored the picture may be in detail, the whole will have a false' and even an unfinished appearance, at whatever distance, or in whatever light, it can be shown.. ..This manner was then new to the world, but that unshaken truth on which it is founded has fixed it as a model to all succeeding painters; and those who will examine into the artifice will find it to consist in the power of generalizing, and in the shortness and simplicity of the means employed."

"It was contrary to his habit to finish at one painting, and he used to say that a poet who improvises cannot hope to form pure verses. But of i condiments ' in the shape of last retouches he was particularly fond. Now and then he would model the light into half tint with a rub of his finger; or with a touch of his thumb he would dab a spot of dark pigment into some corner to strengthen it ; or throw in a reddish stroke—a tear of blood, so to speak—to break the parts superficially. In fact, when finishing, he painted much more with his fingers than with his brush."

"In every thing Titian's art was similar to nature. Milk feeds his babes; he weaves the stuffs; by him the arms are wrought. He transfers the trees, the hills, and plains to his picture; his animals have but just issued from the ark; and his joy or grief are alike infectious. So long as Nature lives Titian will also live. He was the very mirror of nature, only that the mirror reflects whilst Titian creates."

"Titian prepared his pictures with a solid stratum of pigment, which served as a bed or fundament upon which to return frequently. Some of these preparations were made with resolute strokes of a brush heavily laden with colour, the half tints struck in with pure red earth, the lights with white, modeled into relief by touches of the same brush dipped into red, black, and yellow. In this way he would give the promise of a figure in four strokes. After laying this [first] foundation he would turn the picture to the wall, and leave it there perhaps for months, turning it round again after a time to look at it carefully, and scan the parts as he would the face of his greatest enemy. If at this time any portion of it should appear to him to have been defective, he would set to work to correct it, applying remedies as a surgeon might apply them, cutting off excrescences here, superabundant flesh there, redressing an arm, adjusting or setting a limb, regardless of the pain which it might cause. In this way he would reduce the whole to a certain symmetry, put it aside, and return again a third or more times, till the first quintessence had been covered over with its padding of flesh."

"Titian was visited on a certain occasion by a company of German travelers.. ..these gentlemen declared that they only knew of one master capable of finishing as they thought paintings ought to be finished, and that was Dürer.. ..To these observations Titian smilingly replied, that if he had thought extreme finish to be the end and aim of art, he too would have fallen into the excesses of Dürer. But though long experience had taught him to prefer a broad and even track to a narrow and intricate path, yet he would still take occasion to show that the subtlest detail might be compassed without sacrifice of breadth, and so produced the 'Christ of the Tribute Money'."

"Many artists, as Vasari likewise observes, have ignorantly imagined they are imitating the manner of Titian when they leave their colours rough, and neglect the detail: but not possessing the principles on which he wrought, they have produced what he calls goffe pitture, absurd, foolish pictures; for such will always be the consequence of affecting dexterity without science, without selection, and without fixed principles."

"..as is also another [painting] of Diana, who, bathing in a fount with her Nymphs, transforms Actaeon into a stag.. ..He also painted Europa passing over the sea on the back of the Bull. All these pictures are in the possession of the Catholic King, held very dear for the vivacity that Tiziano has given to the figures with his colors, making them natural and as if alive. It is true, however, that the method of work which he employed in these last pictures is no little different from the method of his youth, for the reason that the early works are executed with a certain delicacy and a diligence that are incredible, and they can be seen both from near and from a distance, and these last works are executed with bold strokes and dashed off with a broad and even coarse sweep of the brush, insomuch that from near little can be seen, but from a distance they appear perfect."

"This method [of painting by Titian] has been the reason that many, wishing to imitate him therein and to play the practised master, have painted clumsy pictures; and this happens because, although many believe that they are done without effort, in truth it is not so, and they deceive themselves, for it is known that they are painted over and over again, and that he [Titian] returned to them with his colours so many times, that the labour may be perceived. And this method, so used, is judicious, beautiful, and astonishing, because it makes pictures appear alive and painted with great art, but conceals the labor."

"Michelagnolo and Vasari, going one day to visit Tiziano in the Belvedere [in Rome, 1546], saw in a picture that he [Titian] had executed at that time a nude woman representing Danae, who had in her lap Jove transformed into a rain of gold; and they praised it much, as one does in the painter's presence. After they had left him, discoursing of Tiziano's method, [Michelangelo] Buonarroti commended it not a little, saying that his coloring and his manner much pleased him, but that it was a pity that in Venice men did not learn to draw well from the beginning, and that those painters did not pursue a better method in their studies.. ..And in fact this is true, for the reason that he who has not drawn much nor studied the choicest ancient and modern works, cannot work well from memory by himself or improve the things that he copies from life, giving them the grace and perfection wherein art goes beyond the scope of nature, which generally produces some parts that are not beautiful."

"When Vasari, the writer of this history, was at Venice in the year 1566, he went to visit Tiziano, as one who was much his friend, and found him at his painting with brushes in his hand, although he was very old; and he had much pleasure in seeing him and discoursing with him. He made known to Vasari Messer Gian Maria Verdezotti, a young Venetian gentleman full of talent, a friend of Tiziano and passing able in drawing and painting, as he showed in some landscapes of great beauty drawn by him. This man has by the hand of Tiziano, whom he loves and cherishes as a father, two figures painted in oils within two niches, an Apollo and a Diana."

"Titian, having adorned Venice, or rather all Italy and other parts of the world, with excellent paintings, well merits to be loved and respected by artists, and is in many things to be admired and imitated also, as one who has produced, and is producing, works of infinite merit; nay, such as must endure while the memory of illustrious men shall remain."

"Titian by a few strokes knew how to mark the general image and character of whatever objects he attempted. His great care was to preserve the masses of light and shade, and to give by opposition the idea of that solidity which is inseparable from natural objects."

"I recollect hearing Messer Titian say when I visited his house in my childhood to learn something of painting that he had greatly improved his works after having been in Rome [in 1545-46]."

"On the 3rd of July 1518 Titian was called to the Salt Office [of Venice], and there curtly informed: — "that unless he [Titian] began at once or within a week to work at the canvas in the Hall of Great Council which had been neglected for so many years, and unless he should proceed to labour at it continuously till its completion, 'their magnificences ' would cause it to be painted and finished at Titian's expense". But: Awful as the threat appeared, it failed to move the painter in any way. He had orders for great altar-pieces at Ancona and Brescia, commissions from the Duke of Ferrara, etc.."

"[Titian] painted the panel for the altar of 'Saint Peter Martyr' in the church of SS Giovanni and Paolo, making the figure of the holy martyr larger than life among enormous trees in a wood, where, having fallen to the ground, he is savagely assaulted by a soldier who has wounded him in the head in such a way that his face, as he lies these half alive, shows the horror of death, while in the figure of another friar who is in flight the terror and fear of death can be recognized. In the air are two nude angels coming from a light in heaven which illuminates the unusually beautiful landscape as well as the entire work; this is the most accomplished and celebrated, the greatest and best conceived and executed of the works that Titian completed during his whole lifetime."

"I paint my pictures with all the considerations which are natural to my intelligence, and according as my intelligence understands them."

"Your Titian, or rather our Titian is here [from Venice to Rome] and he tells me that he is under great obligation to you for having been the main cause of his coming hither.. ..he has already seen so many fine antiques [of Rome] that he is filled with wonder, and glad that he came."

"..I glanced at a sky [aboven the Grand Canal in Venice where a boat-race was going on] which since the days of the creation was never more splendidly graced with lights and shadows. The air was such as an artist would like to depict who grieved that he was not Titian. The stonework of the houses, though solid, seemed artificial, the atmosphere varied from clean to leaden. The clouds above the roofs [of Venice] merged into a distance of smokey gray, the nearest blazing like suns, more distant ones glowing as molten lead dissolving at least into horizontal streaks, now greenish blue, now bluish green.. ..And as I watched the scene I exclaimed more than once, 'Oh Titian, where art thou, and why not here to realize this scene?'"

"..if this man [Titian] had been in any way assisted by art and design, as he is by nature, and above all in counterfeiting the life, no one could do more or work better, for he has a fine spirit and a very beautiful and lively manner."

"Ben vegg' io, Tiziano, in forme nuove L' idolo mio, che i begli occhi apre e gira."

"Titian, now I clearly see in a new guise My beloved idol, opening her eyes."

"If I were a painter I should die of despair.. ..but certain it is that Titian's pencil has waited on Titian's old age to perform its miracles."

"There had been a time, as Vasari truly said, when the master [Titian] finished his works with such care and minuteness that they bore inspection at any distance. At a later period his touches and brush strokes were ill suited for a close inspection, but at the focus they were perfectly effective, and so stupendously clever that the scenes appeared to be real. Three lives has Titian, one natural, one artificial, the third eternal."

"M. Tuciano [Titian] — I received the two beautiful pictures which you were pleased to send as a present to me, and am very grateful for them, not only because I was most desirous of possessing works from such skillful hands as yours, knowing as I do how clever you are in the art of painting, but because you send me portraits of two persons who were always and still are dear to me; —so like too that nature itself could not have made them more so; I therefore thank you, and shall hold these pictures dear for your sake; and you may be assured that nothing you could have done would have been more agreeable to me, or make me feel myself more under obligation. When I can I shall ever be ready to do you a pleasure, and always be disposed and inclined to consult your wishes."

"The canvas of the naked Venus sleeping in a landscape with a small Cupid, was by the hand of Zorzo da Castelfranco, but the landscape and the Cupid were finished by Titian."

"Our master Titian is quite disconsolate at the loss of his wife, who was buried yesterday. He told me that in the troubled time of her sickness he was unable to work at the portrait of the lady Cornelia or at the picture of the 'i Nude' which he is doing for our most illustrious Lord; but he thinks the latter will be a fine thing, and he hopes to finish it before the month is out. Meanwhile he desires to know how his Lordship likes the 'St. Sebastian' lately sent to him, which he admits is but an ordinary performance as compared with the nudes, and one which he only produced as an entertainment in token of the devotion which he feels for his Excellency."

"The [body [of St. Sebastian ] is bound with one arm high up, the other low down, to a column ; the whole frame writhes in such a way as to display almost all of the back. In all parts of the person there is evidence of suffering, and all from one arrow that sticks in the middle of the body. I am no judge, because I do not understand drawing, but looking at the limbs and muscles the figure seems to me to be as natural as a corpse."

"Before Christmas, Tebaldi [Titian's agent in Venice] received a letter from the Duke Alfonso, with orders to communicate the contents to Titian. "Let him know," says Alfonso, "that we have thought over the matter of the 'St. Sebastian'.. ..Let him think on the other hand of serving us well in the work which he has on hand for us, as we do not mean to burthen him with more for the present, and we have to remind him of the head which he began at our bidding before he left Ferrara." A canvas and a present of twenty-five scudi preceded the dispatch of this letter, and from a reply subsequently made by Tebaldi, we ascertain that "the head" was a half length on panel which Titian had promised to enlarge so as to include "an elbow and a part of a left hand.""

"Most Illustrious and best Lord Uncle, — Having asked Titian, the bearer of these presents, to execute certain work for me, he declared himself unable to serve me at present, because of a promise to do certain things for your Excellency which require time. For this reason I send him to attend your Excellency. But I beg he may be sent back at once to expedite the work I have on hand for him, which will take but a few days. As soon as he shall have done he can return to the service of your Excellency, and in this your Excellency will do me a singular pleasure to whom I stand greatly recommended."