In 1527 Pietro Aretino arrived in Venice, exiled. Fleeing the sack of Rome, he was soon followed by Sansovino and Sebastiano del Piombo. A strong friendship was then born between Tiziano, Aretino and Sansovino, especially between Tiziano and Aretino who established deep fraternal ties. In 1530, thanks to either Aretino’s or Federico II Gonzaga’s influence on the occasion of the coronation of Charles V in Bologna, Tiziano was introduced to the emperor and painted the first portrait of him. Two years later, in the winter of 1532-1533, during his second stay in Bologna, the emperor and Tiziano began a close collaboration. Tiziano was later appointed as the official court portraitist, Count of the Lateran Palace, Count of Platino and Knight of the Golden Spur. Now the painter, who had enjoyed the trust of powerful families such as the Este of Ferrara, the Gonzaga of Mantua and, since 1532, of the Della Rovere of Urbino, maintained cordial relations with the emperor himself. His fame and fortune were already firmly established outside of Venice and Italy, and he was one of the most eminent personalities in Italian and European society, considered on the same level as those noble gentlemen that his brush portrayed more and more frequently… Some of his most famous portraits came from these years, such as that of the Emperor Charles V with a dog (Prado), that of cardinal Ippolito dei Medici (Palazzo Pitti) wearing Hungarian uniform, and the portrait of a Man in Armor (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana), probably a portrait of the painter’s father Gregorio Vecellio, in his time the Captain of the Centuria of Pieve di Cadore. In the portrait of Charles V, the approach and composition perfectly represent the typically royal attitude of the sovereign reflected in the harmonious fusion of the golden brown and light gray of the suit. In the portrait of Ippolito dei Medici the tonalities of the soft purple velvet of his “Hungarian” uniform are splendid as well as the melancholic serene appearance of the sitter. In the portrait of a Man in Armor, the sitter was portrayed simply, in a frontal position, showing us the old warrior in half bust dressed in red military coat.
Influenced by the Mannerist style coming from central Italy, the dynamic energy of Michelangelo and the serene beauty of Raphael, Tiziano’s art began to show new elements. These Mannerist influences can be seen in Tiziano’s Madonna and Child with Sts. Anthony of Padua and Roch (Prado) and in the Conjugal Allegory (Louvre), but they appeared further strengthened in the soft luminosity of his Presentation of the Virgin at the temple painted between 1534-1538 for the hall of the Hostel of the Scuola della Caritá, and currently housed in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. In this painting the light becomes clearer, extending towards the figures and background, and turns into a golden halo that covers the blue image of Mary as a child, who is climbing the grandiose staircase. The city of Venice surrounds her with its constructions and inhabitants portrayed from the natural, we can see the crowd that follows Mary and witnesses the scene. In the background the native valleys dilate in the morning light and reality reaffirms in the figure of the old woman sitting at the foot of the stairs, the egg-seller, who blinds the viewer with the luminous whiteness of her shawl.
From 1538 is the Venus of the Uffizi, painted for the Duke of Urbino and hence popularized with the name Venus of Urbino (Uffizi). A sensual and lazy indolence emanates from the splendid female nude wrapped in the golden wave of her skin, lying between the folds of the sheet that stands out white on the velvety red of the bed. Two maidens, in the background, prepare the lady’s dresses in the lavish atmosphere of a stately Venetian house, while the mullioned window opens onto the sea to reveal the colors of the lagoon with the golden red and blue of the sky in the sunset. They are possibly the atmosphere and light that surrounded Tiziano and that he was able to contemplate in his new house in Birri Grandi, in the San Cancian neighborhood.
The portraits of this period never reflect the slightest return of Tiziano to Mannerist ways and constitute one of the most beautiful and famous productions of his work.
The portrait of Isabella d’Este (Kunsthistorisches Museum) is dated between 1534 and 1536 and is interpreted as an evocation of lost youth, with Isabella dressed in lavish clothing and headdress. Of the same tone are the two individual portraits of the Dukes of Urbino (Uffizi): Francesco Maria, who never posed for this portrait but instead sent Tiziano his armor, was portrayed in a heroic and gleaming posture, while Eleonora Gonzaga is shown sumptuous in her black and gold gala dress, but with a sad aged face, her figure enveloped in the twilight that trembles and darkens in the sky covered with clouds. In contrast to the courtly solemnity of these princely portraits, the calm figure of La Bella (Palazzo Pitti) smiles to us with both her gesture and the soft harmony of her colors, black, gold and purple, while her whole figure appears illuminated by the silky whiteness of her sleeves. This same model returned in the Woman in a Fur Coat (Kunsthistorisches Museum), which reflects certain softness in the pink tints of her bare skin which in turn contrast with the tawny red of the mantle that falls from her shoulders.
During this period, Tiziano finished the Battle of Cadore, begun years before. The work no longer exists, but from the drawings, the reproductions and the partial copies we can appreciate that its novelty laid in the convulsive agitation of the horses and riders and in those fantastic plays of light that gave life and form to the tangle of figures. Perhaps a new homage to Mannerist culture was manifested in this work, which can also be appreciated in Tiziano’s paintings on the ceilings of the church of Santo Spirito in Isola (now in the sacristy of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice), made between 1542 and 1544, with a wealth of foreshortenings and certain chiaroscuro of an emphatic taste, generally unknown in Tiziano’s work. This same spirit is found in The Marchese del Vasto Addressing his Troops (Prado) from 1540-1541 and in the Ecce Homo (Kunsthistorisches Museum) dated 1543.
However, in Tiziano’s work the Mannerist influence was not limited to becoming an academic representation of bold foreshortenings, agitated figures, and movements in violent and exasperated rotation, all seen inside a harsh contrast of lights, but it became the source for the search for a fully human and heroic representation of the world. With Saint John the Almoner (Church of San Giovanni Elemosinario, Venice) dated ca. 1549-1550, Tiziano went beyond Mannerism and, marvelously synthesizing light and color, created form and space in his own way, while the natural reality translated into an ideal classical measure. And once again it is color, with all its expressive values, that will prevail and will always live in Tiziano’s work. Several important portraits came from these years, somewhat before his trip to Rome: Clarissa Strozzi (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), portrayed fresh in her youthful grace and soft colors; the portrait of Pope Paul III (Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte), probably painted in 1543, an almost hallucinatory work in its twinkling red and purple tones traced with rapid brushstrokes on the soft white of the costume, and the Young Englishman (Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti), perhaps Ippolito Rominaldi who, despite his frontality and the somber tones of his black suit, palpitates within soft golden lights that fall on his face and imprint a mysterious intensity on his large pale eyes.
Lastly, from 1545, is the portrait of Pietro Aretino (Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti). The writer wrote of his portrait to Duke Cosimo: “It is true that he breathes, his temples throb and he reacts the way I do in life.” The own writer recognized himself in this magnificent portrait: the red lavishness of the silky clothing and the cynical and violent features reflecting a character with a poignant truth.
In October 1545, Tiziano left for Rome. He was received with great joy by Pietro Bembo, Cardinal Farnese and even Pope Paul III. The honors reached the summit on March 19 of the following year, when he solemnly received the Roman citizenship in the Capitolio. During his stay in the Eternal City he devoted himself mainly to produce portraits, although he also attended to some religious commissions and allegorical scenes. For Alessandro Farnese, the Pope’s grandson, Tiziano painted the Danaé (Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte). The soft golden feminine image emerges clearly from the shadows, with delicate tonal transitions which highlight the color and the tremor of her skin. Among the most important portraits of this period we must cite that of Pope Paul III and his Grandsons (Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte). This painting has been defined by academics as representing “the first historical scene of modern painting” and is impressively vivid. The colloquy of the three characters is portrayed with simplicity by using very fast brushstrokes; it is almost like a study, a detailed sketch, while the color vibrates in the treatment of reds, whites and subdued purples. The characters are individualized and immediately revealed: the cunning of the power-hungry Pontiff, Ottavio creeping in his adulation, and an almost disdainful and detached Alessandro. Returning from Rome, in November 1546, Tiziano stopped in Florence and offered his services to Grand Duke Cosimo I, who rejected them. Once in Venice, Tiziano painted the votive portrait of the Vendramin Family Venerating a Relic of the True Cross (National Gallery, London). In a simpler form, the diagonal compositions that we observed before in the Pesaro altarpiece and in the Presentation in the Temple reappear here. But the architectures are reduced to a few essential elements and the sacred images are so to a symbol. Disturbing human contrasts have disappeared from the calm faces of the adults and the attentive faces of the children. The figures themselves create the space with solemn and serene calm, while the black, white, red and orange colors of the clothing joyfully vibrate against the pulsating blue of the sky, crossed by clouds of silver.
In 1547, Tiziano was invited by Charles V to Augsburg where the Court was established after the victory at Mühlberg against the Protestant league and John Frederick of Saxony. In January 1548, accompanied by his son Horace and his nephew Caesar, Tiziano undertook the journey. His stay at the Court provided him with the magnificent opportunity to portray the most important and lavish personalities of the time and of the imperial court. The Emperor Charles V himself posed for him. His famous portrait of Emperor Charles V at Mühlberg (Prado) has an almost symbolic character in the exaltation of his royalty. The figure encased in resplendent armor, in contrast to the somewhat livid desolation of the Mühlberg camp in the background, seems to have lost all humanity to become a myth of royal power. But his tired and suffering humanity is redeemed in his other Portrait of Charles V Seated (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) showing us an elder emperor leaning back in his chair, with an almost absent expression, somber against the black background of his suit, the red of the carpet and the yellow of the damask. In the posthumous portrait of Isabella of Portugal (Prado), we can detail the splendid purple brocade of her dress, which appears palpitating under the light that on the other side of the window wanders over the distant mountains and plays its effects on the royal jewels and her face clouded with melancholy, almost like a presentiment of death. Life, on the contrary, vibrates in the fleshy figure of the Great Elector John Frederick of Saxony, defeated by Charles V in Mühlberg (Kunsthistorisches Museum). The violent and tenacious personality of this man shines through, as he appears powerful in his wide body wrapped in a tawny coat, and in the intense feelings that are reflected in his serious and sanguine face, this work seems almost an unprejudiced homage by the great Tiziano to the art of Cranach.
The Venus and an Organist and a Little Dog (Prado) can be dated circa 1550 and was the inspiration for later versions on the same theme now held in Berlin and, without the organist but including a cupid, in the Uffizi. Tiziano’s poetry is expressed above all in the wide, open twilight landscape in the background, and in the attentive, captivated face of the young musician. Returning to Venice in 1549 and passing through Innsbruck, Tiziano made a series of paintings called “of the Furies” or “of the Damned” for Maria of Hungary, the emperor’s sister. In Sisyphus and Tityus (both in the Prado), the only canvases of this series that were preserved, a desperate and wild impetus explodes. The massive bodies of the two giants are mitigated by the dominant monochrome shades of brown that change, here and there, into sudden flashes of shadows and lights.
In 1550, Charles V called Tiziano back to Augsburg with the somewhat exclusive commission to portray his son and successor Philip II, Tiziano’s future main client. The portrait of Philip II in Armor (Prado) is almost a heraldic image. The young man, then 24, was portrayed standing, his legs tense, sheathed in the lavish armor on which the light slides, creating splendid reflections and making the damascene and gold fabrics even more precious. In the gloom, the purplish reds of the fabric, the silvery grays of the feathers on the helmet’s crest and the profiles of the architecture throb. They are all chromatic palpitations that Tiziano never got tired to represent, the light hits the sitter’s face as well as the satin and silk of his suit and stockings. The portraits executed by the master were numerous during this second stay in the Imperial Court: some of official nature, such as another of Philip II (Naples), others more simple and immediate, such as that of Antonio Anselmi (Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid), the so-called portrait of Benedetto Varchi (Vienna) and that of Bishop Ludovico Beccadelli (Uffizi).
On his return to Venice in 1551 Tiziano, although still bounded by his commitments in Augsburg because of imperial commissions, resumed his work for the Serenissima and accepted new ecclesiastical commissions. For Philip II of Spain he made some mythological “poetry” paintings: Venus and Adonis and the Danaé Receiving the Golden Rain (both in Prado), among others, in which he expressed himself mainly through color, as if the free fantasy of the subject translated into freedom of expression, a painted poetry that reached magical fusions of figures and atmosphere in a chromatic range interwoven with the atmospheric light. The figures seem weightless and almost floating in the golden shadow, where the richest shades of browns, reds and grays harmonize in a sparkle of deep blue skies.
Perhaps Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto (both in Edinburgh) closed that magical period of the 1450s, in which their language is composed above all of the interplay of light and color, and which reached its splendor in the Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saints John and Dominic of San Domenico of Ancona (now in the Museo Civico of Ancona), from 1558, and in the Annunciation of San Domenico Maggiore of Naples (now in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples), which can be dated to the end of the decade. The mournful images of Golgotha and the protagonists of the Annunciation to Mary are almost unreal apparitions, made of light and colors that emerge from stormy skies, in a lunar atmosphere, following dynamic and rich chiaroscuro effects that transmute them, between flaming glows, into evanescent ghosts.
The Saint Jerome in Penitence (El Escorial) and the Entombment (Prado), also executed during the years Tiziano worked for Philip II, show this same spirit. A quick brushstroke define the characters’ figures, almost exasperatedly, and sets them in vast deep landscapes, with shadows sometimes torn by dazzling lights that seem to bring nature and colors to life. And between these incandescent glows, nature becomes cosmic, immense, participant and protagonist at the same time, as in the splendid The Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane in its two versions, one in El Escorial and the other in the Prado, both made for the Emperor. In them, the colors are so impregnated with lights and shadows that they become almost amazing luminous monochromes, throbbing in a dramatic chiaroscuro contrast. Looking at these works and the contemporary great altarpiece of Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata (Trapani), the viewer is shaken by sudden tremors that give the clear sensation of the creative impetus of Tiziano who, walking towards old age, seemed to abandon himself to his art, losing his spirit in color and light, enclosing himself in painting, away from all human contingencies, and forgetting about honors and commissions. Possibly on this occasion more than ever he painted just for himself, finding in his work a fullness of feelings and thoughts. The happy and sad events of his life seem to no longer affect him. This transfiguration and transposition in his art is testified by the Berlin Self-Portrait, dated around 1562-1564, where he modeled his beautiful old face, with lively eyes and vibrant energy in his features scarred by the passing of the years. These were years of feverish activity and, necessarily, Tiziano had to resort more and more to the help of the numerous collaborators who frequented his workshop in Birri Grandi. There, canvases that had begun years ago were re-worked, changes were made to works whose execution was already advanced, copies were executed that in turn helped spread throughout the world Tiziano’s work to other distant lands. It is, therefore, truly difficult to interpret Tiziano’s production at this time. The presence of his workshop assistants is sometimes evident, even in important paintings, such as the Transfiguration (San Salvatore in Venice) and in the altarpiece of Saint Sebastian (votive chapel of Niccoló Crasso). Even in the Last Supper (El Escorial), sent to Spain in 1564, work by members of his workshop is evident in the figures of Christ and the Apostles, almost academic in tone, in contrast to the magnificent background landscape, open to atmospheric distances of emotional poetry.
But undoubtedly Tiziano painted many works by himself, almost in proud isolation, and his thriving personality continued to be felt with new creative and poetic powers. There were even sudden returns to motifs from his early maturity, inspired in the poetic world of allegories and mythological themes of his already distant “poems“, like the Venus Blindfolding Cupid (Borghese) from ca. 1560-1565. However, there is no longer the serene spirit of yesteryear; neither is present the static contemplation of classical beauty. Also, in these paintings color darkens in reddish tones, somewhat burned by a summer sunset light. Now in his work, Tiziano admirably sought to achieve a fusion between inspiration and nature. And he executed this by means of his prodigious brushstrokes described by Vasari as “made with energetic strokes, applied with wide brushstrokes and color spots… (which) seen up close don’t appear clear, but that are perfectly appreciated from a distance”.
The Artistic Adventure of Mankind 