Original subtitles

After the phenomenal achievements of the Renaissance artist in 16th century Florence,

the shifting creative power moved to Venice, and into the hands of a supreme master of colour, light, and sensuality,

who pioneered new techniques in oil painting. His name? Titian.

Titian of Achelio, known as Titian in the English-speaking world, was born in P.A. V. Decadoré, a small mountain town in Northern Italy,

into a family of lawyers and administrators.

We don't actually know the date of his birth, but it was sometime between 1487 and 1490.

And we do know that before the century turned, and before he was 10 years old,

he and his brother Francesco were sent by the family, here to Venice,

to join their own clandonia who was a civil servant.

But the brothers were not going to do the family tradition.

Instead, they were going to be trained to be painters.

Venice was a good choice.

For many centuries, the Venetian Republic had been one of the most powerful states in Europe,

with a vast commercial empire dominating the eastern Mediterranean as far as Cyprus.

So, to the young Titian arriving here around 1500, it was a wealthy, beautiful and sophisticated city,

offering highly lucrative possibilities.

Titian clearly something of a prodigy works in a few minor painting workshops in the city,

before finding a place with the elderly Giovanni Bellini, then the leading artist of Venice.

By the beginning of the 16th century,

Venetian painting was beginning to display its own characteristics,

different from the central Italian artistic concern, with design and draftsmanship.

Venetian art displayed a mastery of colour and an obsession with the effects of light.

The light reflected from the canals and legumes prompted painters to try and capture its qualities.

The colour emulated the rich and dazzling fabrics and jewels imported from far-off lands.

Venice's damp climate made fresco painting, a method of painting water-based pigments on freshly plastered walls,

rather difficult.

He led artists to favour oil painting as a medium.

As a result, Venetians experimented further with oil paints than other Italian painters

and popularised the use of oil on canvas, rather than on wooden panel.

An innovation that Titian developed more than any other artist of his time.

Still in his teens, Titian went to work with Giovanni,

the rising star of the Venetian art world, from whom Titian learned a good deal.

This is evident in early works like the Gypsy Madonna painted around 1510, which shows a considerable mastery of working in oil,

harmony of complementary colours, and a great emphasis on landscape in composition.

An idealised landscape is the setting for another early biblical drama, Nolly May Tanjere.

The figures are powerfully integrated with their surroundings.

The resurrected Christ's shroud, with a bluish shadow,

seems to bring the sky down to earth in the picture.

Likewise, the sunlight glinting on Mary Magdalene's hair is reproduced on the bleached

thatch roofs of the buildings in the background.

By 1514, four years after Giovanni had become victim to the savage plague that swept through the city,

Titian established his own workshop.

His artistic rivals at either left Venice, grown old, or been struck by the plague,

allowing his workshop quickly to become one of the most successful in town.

Titian painted a number of commissions in churches, but in 1516 he got a big commission

that established his reputation throughout Venice and beyond.

It was here in the Friari Church, and it was this work, which is the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Now to our eyes at the beginning of the 21st century, it's just another religious painting,

but in fact, it was a dramatic image the like of which had never been seen before.

Now what Titian does is divides the picture into three sections,

but he brings life to it.

The apostles are statue-esque, almost muscular sculptures,

and it shows that he's been looking at Michelangelo.

Then moving up a level, we see these angels are putty holding up these willowy-wispy clouds,

on which the Virgin Mary herself is, rather idealized in an away, he's been looking at Raphael,

and then upwards in the heavens themselves, there's this ethereal glow that's pure Titian.

But how does he bind it all together?

Well, in two ways, one is colour.

This vibrant, Venetian colour that's emerging in Titian becomes the master of it,

particularly red, it punctuates the painting from God to the Virgin to the apostles themselves.

But overall, it's light.

Now we have a privilege in this painting now, because we see it in situ as Titian intended.

And we see this marble frame around it that he helped design,

that keeps the light out on the sides.

But when we look at it again, we realize that that gold luminosity behind the Virgin herself

and behind God actually competes with the natural light around it,

and that's what's so radical about this painting.

In fact, it was so radical that the friars who'd commissioned it were very uneasy,

but the Imperial Ambassador in Venice offered to buy the work,

the Friari Church then realized they were on to something,

said they'd keep it, and as a consequence, everyone wanted Titian to paint in their churches.

And in fact, his next big work is just down the apps of the church on the right hand side.

This altar piece was a private commission for the pezzero family,

who in 1518 gave the Friari Church a lot of money,

so that this altar was in perpetuity and monument to them and their offspring.

And then a year later, they commissioned Titian to produce an image

that most celebrates the family and the immaculate conception

to which this altar was initially dedicated.

So what we see is an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Christ Child,

surrounded by saints, we can see some Francis and Anthony

on the extreme right hand side, and then some Peter, centre stage

with the keys of heaven on the step just below his feet.

There's also a nice little twist here because local legend has it,

but that bearded figure is not just a saint,

but it could also be a portrait of Titian himself, a self portrait, in other words.

Now, this is a much more somber picture in tone than the assumption,

and yet it's still brought vividly to life by colour,

red runs through as again, but there's some neat balances,

red and it's alternative colour, it's complementary green,

but also look at blue and orange, that goes together rather neatly as well.

But there are two other devices that Titian experiments with here

that makes this picture in turn radical.

The first is that instead of having this sacred image,

perpendicular to the picture plane, which was usual,

he tilts it, we can see it more obviously with the steps,

as if it's 45 degrees on its axis, and so it gives us a sense of depth.

And the second device is the columns themselves,

and the x-ray show, that he's tried a number of approaches here.

His initial idea was to have an apps,

to make the picture mirror the shape of the frame of the altabies itself.

But in the end, he opts for two endless columns,

that both mirror the columns on either side,

but more importantly, take us upwards and upwards towards having itself.

One of the reasons for Titian's swift rise to celebrity

was his large and varied output.

He divided his time between large scale religious works,

destined for public places,

and those for private collectors, like portraits,

and more erotically charged images.

This is Flora painted around 1520,

an example of a courtesan portrait,

and which it's thought the patron commission for his bedroom.

This type of image is becoming increasingly popular in 16th century Venice.

Titian often used the female form to supply his wealthy patrons with pictures,

which subtly allude to sexual love.

The paintings were often hung behind curtains, or in private quarters,

and shown off only to select male visitors.

The woman is supposedly Flora, a legendary figure from ancient Roman festivals,

known as both the Cortesan and the Goddess.

Cortesans were high-class prostitutes,

well-versed in poetry, literature, and music.

The demand for both ordinary prostitutes and Cortesans must have been extremely high.

In a city of around 125,000 people,

there were nearly 12,000 of them,

a growing service industry for the tradesmen, sailors and tourists,

who flocked to the sensual city.

By his early 30s, Titian was well-established as the leading Venetian artist,

and he'd also begun to attract attention from patrons further afield.

The countryside around Venice was made up of duches,

and home to a number of wealthy families,

who were central to the development of Renaissance art,

being the main source of commissions for poets and painters.

Titian became extremely popular with two powerful Renaissance families,

the Gonzaga's of Mantua, and the Deste family from Ferrara.

The Duke of Ferrara commissioned Titian to paint a series of works for his study,

and the Venetian responded with three large,

luscious, mythological scenes,

devoted to organic feasts and falling in love.

And this is one of the three pictures that Titian made for the Duke of Ferrara,

joyful, exuberant, slightly crazy.

It tells the story of Bakus and Ariadne,

and it's a narrative painting full of detail, full of life, full of energy.

And what Titian is doing is taking one of the traditional subjects

in the history of art, mythology, but totally revitalizing it.

The scene is set on the Greek island of Naxos,

where Ariadne here has just woken up to find that her lover Thesis has deserted her.

Having solicited her help to kill the minor tool,

he then leaves her, and Titian eludes to that,

by showing a ship there in the distance,

sailing off over the horizon line,

and that really is the symbol of her lost love.

But in turn, the God, backers, the God of wine and inspiration,

appears to try and seduce Ariadne, or indeed to carve her off.

So she's just woken up, she's just seen love lost.

She's also then startled by this handsome young God,

but with these lunatic ontourage.

And this is the ontourage of back and alien frenzy.

Their drunks, you can see a guy drunk on an ass there in the background,

another carrying a barrel, and another holding above his head,

the leg with the hoof of a cow that they just torn in this kind of frenzy

with a head here in the foreground.

The painting is filled with symbols.

Look up in the sky.

There's a constellation of stars set against this deep azure blue sky

when it seems to be the middle of the day.

Now, the symbol of that is clear.

When eventually, backers and Ariadne married,

he gave her a die-dem, a jewel crown or headpiece for the wedding present,

which in turn, later on in the mythological story,

becomes a constellation of stars,

and there it is above her head as a kind of symbol of the union,

a wedding ring, if you like, between these two figures.

When you first look at this picture,

there are two overriding characteristics that you notice,

and it's those that give the picture its real strength.

The first is colour.

Titian, even at this early stage in his career, is a masterful colourist.

These wonderful, deep blues,

sometimes heightened by their complementary orange,

sometimes made to sing against the red or the green,

and there's always a fantastic sense of colour balance.

And in fact, this painting looks as if it's lit from behind.

It has a graphic and striking sense of luminosity.

And the second characteristic is the frozen moment.

It's as if the most wild party has suddenly been stopped

by the press of a pause button on a video.

This is one of the great suspended frozen moments in Titian's career.

And it's because of this, that Titian is able to reinvigorate this subject.

There are thousands of mythological paintings in the history of art,

but there are very few that are as visually energetic as this one.

By the time Titian had completed the commission for the Duke study,

he was in his mid-30s.

Due to his true business sense and the prodigious output of his studio,

he'd by now amassed considerable wealth.

But not everything was flourishing.

Tragedy struck in his personal life.

His wife Cecilia died in 1530.

Certain scholars believe that Cecilia was used as a model in some of Titian's works,

not least this one, the Madonna and Rabbit, thought to be painted around the time that she died.

But it's a view that's perhaps a bit more romantic than based on any fact.

Surely after the death of his wife, he moved with his children to a large house

in one of Venice's more refined districts.

Here he lived the life of a distinguished Phoenician gentleman,

and entertained the city's most illustrious men and women.

He was at the height of his success when he came to the attention of his most prestigious patron yet.

In 1530, Titian went to Bolonia to attend the coronation of Charles V,

and he was introduced to the new Holy Roman Emperor,

who at that time was the most powerful man in the world.

As Holy Roman Emperor, he effectively ruled throughout Central Europe,

and as King of Spain, he ruled territories in the Spanish Netherlands,

as well as numerous places in the new world.

He commissioned Titian to paint a portrait immediately, and that's now lost.

But three years later, Titian began a succession of royal portraits of which this is the most impressive and important.

And usually, it's a full length image of the Emperor,

who stands before us with a suggestion of calm, strong authority.

When you get close up, the brushstrokes of feathery move away, though, and the image crystallizes.

Likewise, Charles emerges out of the darkness behind into the light.

The painting was a great success petition.

He was immediately invited to become a court painter,

and joined the order of the golden spur, which gave him right as a courtier.

In effect, he was becoming part of an important imperial propaganda machine,

where, in an age before photography, the portraits of the Emperor

were an extension of his rule in places where he himself hadn't been.

In turn, for Titian, it made him the most sought-after painter in the West,

an artist who could pick and choose his commissions, rather than depend on the will of others.

Titian's client list was reading like a whos who have made 16th century Europe.

As well as his associations with Charles V and regular visits to the Gonzaga court in Manchua,

Titian also devoted time to another important andastic family,

the Delaware of Eris, of a Bino.

This is one of the more famous pictures in the history of Western art.

It's called the Venus of A Bino, because it was acquired by a man who became the Duke of A Bino,

Guido Baldo de la Revere.

It's an image of wonderfully sensual eroticism,

glazed with a classical veneer, she's called Venus, but she's every woman in a way.

A beautiful figure lying on a bed, covering up her genitals,

but at the same time enticing our gaze there,

but returning our gaze with a vengeance as she stares back, nonciently at us.

Wider Baldo had got married four years before, in 1534, to a child bride,

the dog is a symbol of marital fidelity.

The rose is that she holds is a symbol of the pleasure of love,

but also the constancy of love, as is the mortal plant in the background visible against the window.

The servants seem to be showing how you run a steady household,

so on one level, this picture is almost a manual for a young woman

learning to be a beautiful wife, but it's an image that begins and ends with flesh,

and in fact, Titian is pioneering a new way of painting human flesh,

that involves slow drying oils, that he applies in thinned layers

almost to the point of translucency, and he builds up the flesh,

rather than the way that human flesh is made in layers.

And there's this eroticism that seems to burgeon from this work,

and in fact it heralds a new style of painting.

This is for private eyes, as well as a manual for a young woman to learn how to be a good wife.

And in that respect, it becomes a landmark in the history of erotic art,

and it's a picture that is reinvented and reinterpreted and obsesses artists

as great as Goya, Manne, Picasso, and onwards.

In 1545, in his mid-50s, Titian visited Rome,

invited by the grandson of Pope Paul III.

He stayed in an apartment overlooking the Vatican.

In a letter to Charles V, he wrote to his interest

in the city's numerous classical monuments,

saying, I am learning from these marvellous ancient stones.

But the primary purpose of the trip was patronage,

and he painted portraits of the far naisy family,

whose members included Cardinals and the Pope himself.

In 1555, Charles V abdicated,

and his son Philip II inherited the title of King of Spain.

Titian found Philip to be as powerful and sympathetic a patron,

as his father had been, and produced some of the most dramatic and ambitious work of his life.

Philip initially commissioned Titian to paint two large mythological scenes,

which became part of an epic series,

perhaps the most striking of which is this one, called Diana and Calisto,

held in the National Gallery of Scotland.

The subject matter is classical.

Titian called these his Poems, that were otherworldly and also erotic.

And it tells the story of Diana, she's the goddess of hunting.

She's also the moon goddess.

And one day, she and her merry band of huntresses have been out,

and they come back and they discover that something is not quite right with one of them.

The figure lying here being stripped by her fellow huntresses.

That's Calisto, and what had happened previously is that she'd been raped by Jupiter,

chief of the gods, and she was pregnant.

Now, Chastity was valued above all else in this gathering of women.

And when it was suspected that she might be pregnant, she stripped open,

and this is that moment of revelation.

What happens subsequently in the story is rather tragic.

Calisto is cast out of the group, in turn, when Jupiter's wife,

Juno, here's about what's happened.

She banishes Calisto and turns her into a bear.

In turn, the child that's in Calisto's stomach at this moment,

Arca, her son, sees the bear, pursues what turns out to be his mother,

but he doesn't know that kills her.

But in kind of recompense, Jupiter discovers all of this,

and turns Calisto into Ursa Major, or the great bear, a constellation of stars in the sky.

Antition acknowledges that part of the saga, implicitly,

because look at the action.

It moves from Diana to Calisto.

Diana is pointing at the admonishment.

Go.

Your out is that moment of revelation.

But our eyes, through this snaking water,

are taken back and round to the forest, where Calisto will end up shortly.

And then finally, we're taken off into the sky itself, where she'll also end up.

The sky is also the dominant color area of the whole painting.

If that wonderful orange glow, balanced by the blueness of the hills,

that you find rhymes of all over the painting,

orange and blue are complementary colors,

and it's color that really excites Titian.

He turns paint itself into something like flesh.

He used to smear it on with brushes and it's fingers,

and as he gets older, and he's in his 70s when he paints this,

everything is starting to lighten up.

What's most noticeable about these works

is their rough and almost unfinished nature,

most evident in the last and the series, The Death of Action,

in which line is almost non-existent.

It also supports the idea that in his later years,

Titian painted as much with his fingers as he did with his brush.

The Elderly Titians finally is,

saw him continue to paint prolifically with works

defined by a dramatic intensity,

and an increasingly loose and liberated style.

An acute awareness of impending death seems blatant

in the last painting P.A.T.

on which Titian was working in 1576,

when Venice was ravaged by yet another gruesome play.

Titian died on the 27th of August of that year,

although not actually of the play,

but it got his son soon afterwards,

along with nearly 70,000 Venetians.

And so Titian was buried in a splendid friary church,

surrounded by two of his most accomplished masterpieces.

Titian was the brightest star in the dazzling firmament of 16th century Venice,

whose use of colour and light transformed European art,

and whose physical expressiveness began a revolution in painting.

His work was sought and owned by many of the most powerful people in his world,

making him perhaps the first truly international artist.