Titian or Tintoretto Part 1 Virtual Museum Tour

The work, the authorship of which is attributed to two greatest masters of the world. A masterpiece that for a long time was unrecognized. An order which gave rise to heated arguments through several centuries after its execution. Odessa Museum of Western and Oriental Art. Once upon a time in this building there lived an actual state councilor and a representative of a Moldovan noble family named Alexander Abaza. Today there are works of ancient, eastern and western art. The Hermitage, the Pushkin Gallery, the Odessa Art Museum and the Kiev Museum named after Varvara and Bohdan Khanenko worked on this collection. The exhibits of this museum are not only the greatest works of art but also the embodiment of the greatest mysteries and secrets. Oil canvas the size is 67 by 50 centimeters. For this work the color gamut is characteristic which must be dated and it was dated precisely in the 16th century. At one time chemical technological research was carried out. It confirmed that canvas material and pigments this is precisely at the end of the 16th to early 17th century. In the picture there are not only the colors of the 16th century but there is also a character of the same period and he is not an ordinary man but a well-known personality. The person depicted in the painting was the Doge Girolamo Priuli who was the 83rd Doge of Venice and it was for this period that he reigned 1559. The authorship of the painting is attributed to several different artists and two of them are real superstars of world art. There are three versions the first is the work of Titian the second is that it is the work of his pupil and successor Tintoretto and the third version is that this is a copy from the work of Tintoretto. So the questions are who actually has created this picture? Why were there so many heated arguments around this work of art? And how could the canvas of the greatest artists of the world be in the provincial museum? The future great artist Titian was born into the family of a state and military figure. From an early age he had a passion for drawing. At the age of 10 to 12 years he came to Venice. Here he worked in the workshop of the Bellini brothers. He met other artists who were representatives of the Venetian school of painting. He particularly closely communicated with Giorgione. From the very beginning he started to create his works in the classical manner of performance. This is because he was influenced by Giorgione's school. This was the early period of his work. Tiziano finished for Giorgione his incomplete pictures. Together they painted frescoes in Fondaco dei Tedeschi where only fragments survived. Well, in 1517 Titian became the official artist of the Venetian Republic and that was precisely when a new period of his creative work began. He began to create expressive compositional solutions in his works. In religious works and in portraits he already created more emotional, philosophical paintings. He already looked into the image of a human being and he began to create to some extent psychological portraits. The most outstanding religious and mythological works of this period are Ascension of Our Lady or Asunta, Ariadne and Bacchus and Madonna Pesaro. In the latter Titian's own style could already be seen. The heyday of the artist's portrait art is at the end of the 1530s to 1540s. His portraits are not similar one to another neither compositionally nor colorfully. For each separately taken portrait the master found the best compositional solution. He chose a characteristic pose for each model, a particular facial expression, movement and gestures. It is not surprising that at this time he had many orders from various aristocrats. One of them was the Duke of Urbino. He ordered the artist to do two works, one of which would later inspire Edouard Manet to create his famous Olympia and cause many serious disputes. With the portrait of Guido Aldo II della Rovere everything is very clear, but critics are still fighting over the solution of the mysteries of Venice of Urbino. It still remains a mystery who posed for Titian. Some think the naked golden-haired beauty was the very wife of the Duke. Others think that was his mother and still suggested that it was the artist's wife. Also it is not clear what exactly the master portrayed. Someone insists that it was adultery and someone else said it was quite the opposite, a courtesan who offered her body to the public. But in both cases the girl is extremely seductive. That's what the Duke wanted to see in his wife every day. Work on such seemingly frivolous subjects did not confuse the first persons of the world in those times and they were very happy to order Titian to paint their portraits. Since 1517 Titian was the official artist of the Venetian Republic who painted portraits of the Doges. There are so many images of the Doges of Venice who ruled before this period and there were also a large number of images of Emperor Charles V and Pope Paul III. It was they who even competed for the primacy of being painted by Titian or for making a portrait. It is logical that as an official artist of the Venetian Republic and painting its Doges, Titian should have also portrayed the 83rd Doge Girolamo Priul. In light of this, the painting in the Odessa museum is most likely to belong to the brush of the famous artist. A number of signs point to this. This work is characterized by a color gamut which should be dated and it was dated precisely in the 16th century and it has characteristic signs of Titian's work. It is in the manner of Titian in which it was executed. So, there is an assumption that it could bear exactly the original painted by the master Tiziano Vecelio. There is one more fact that confirms this. The author of the Odessa painting could be Titian and it lies directly in the artist's work. In the 50s he begins to paint a self-portrait and if you look and compare these two canvases, you can see a certain similarity in the image of the person portrayed in them. But some art critics, especially Russian ones, doubt the authorship of Titian. Why do they have such doubt? We will try to explain that later. Now we will note that they give the following arguments. It was these years that were very difficult for Titian in the emotional sense because there were several important events that influenced the creativity of Titian. At that time he suffered many very significant losses. His youngest son Horacio was in a difficult situation. He was attacked and received six stab wounds. It was also during this period that his brother died. In their opinion, a series of tragic events could have distracted the artist from his work for some period of time. Also, the researchers point out some details that are uncharacteristic for Titian. If we consider the periods of his work, then this portrait refers to the late period of Titian's work in which he begins to neglect the classical Venetian-Italian school of painting. The paintings of this period are characterized by a complex pictorial structure. For example, the line between forms and background is practically blurred. The brushstrokes have prevalent interpenetrating or contrasting tones, which create a single entity. But this work has a little bit more dryness than in his canvases that date back exactly to this period. Namely, the last works of the last period. There is one more circumstance, which some researchers cite as the argument that Titian cannot possibly be the author of the Odessa painting. The argument lies in the extremely high workload of the artist. Titian from 1517 was the official artist of the Venetian Republic who painted portraits of the doges. But in 1559, when Priuly was elected the doge, Titian stopped his activity, since he worked at the court of Charles V. Although he had many orders, he practically stopped doing this work. But what takes away the authorship of Titian, hands it over to another, no less talented and great artist. And his name is Jacopo Robusti, or just Tintoretto. By the will of destiny, Jacopo's first teacher was Titian. He worshipped the mastery of his teacher even when he became an independent artist. He always said that creativity for him was drawing like Michelangelo, but painting like Titian. That is, the possibilities of an animated connection of colors in works for him were more characteristic, like in the works of Titian. And in the drawing, he still retained the characteristics of Michelangelo. Even in life, Tintoretto was gaining popularity. Services were enjoyed with great pleasure by the church and the state. The Venetian doges were no exception. Titian stopped this activity, since he worked at the court of Charles V. He had many orders, but practically stopped doing this work, and Tintoretto began painting portraits. There is a material and documentary evidence that in 1559 Tintoretto had an order for the image of the Doge Girolamo Friuli, which was executed in somewhat different sizes. And these certificates exist, they are documented. We cannot say that Tintoretto's work is the same work as that which was executed in the Odessa Museum. Mention of the size of the painting is of very great importance. Despite the fact that the ordered Titian and Odessa were in slightly different size, it could actually be the same painting. Watch about this in the next program. The x-ray patterns that were taken during the study of this portrait show that this can be the work of Titian, because there is a correction on the painting of the image itself. The portrait of the Venetian Doge Friuli, the 83rd Venetian Doge, came to our museum in 1949 from the Hermitage collection. During the restoration work on the reverse side of this canvas, the inscription Tiziano and two stickers were found, one of which was the seal of Prince Leo Mikhailovich Kochubey. Work is underway on the provenance of the painting and its attribution. At one time, chemical-technological research was carried out. It confirmed that the canvas material and pigment are from the end of the 16th to early 17th century.