A gypsy in an Andalusian tavern outside of Seville in full stomp. Her white gown, so unexpected, so eye-catching, so oddly formal, frames the staccato of the feet. The arch of her left forearm, the sexual authority of the pointed wrist and finger, the shadow billowing up from her black lacy blouse, the full throat of the fifth man on the left — leaning back hhheeyyyaahh — you’re there.
You sit in a hall of sarcophagi, medieval statues from Bordeaux, capitols from France, blue tiles before you — what a setting!
My guess is that this is the best marriage of architecture and a painting in America, rivalled only, perhaps, by the van der Weyden in Philadelphia, which I describe later.
JP
3. Europa (1559–62)
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (c. 1488–1576)
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Europa, c. 1559–62
Oil on canvas, 178 x 205 cm
Purchase, 1896 (P26e1)
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Photo credit: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum / Bridgeman Images
Titian painted six “poesies,” love poems based on divine love from Greek mythology and Roman sources. He relied on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The paintings were all for Philip II of Spain.
Aretino had persuaded Titian to court Philip as a patron. He was, after all, head of the world’s largest empire in the sixteenth century.
This story has Jupiter cruising in the sky, he sees the lovely Phoenician princess, Europa, near a herd of cows. Down he goes and changes into a bull. Europa had been picking flowers, went over to the bull, and yes, she stroked him and mounted him. Seems logical. At this point, Jupiter the bull zooms off and reaches Crete. There he satisfies his lust and gives rise to Europe.
From the union, Minos, the most ancient of European civilizations, will be born on the island of Crete. Her brother, Cadmus, the inventor of writing, searched for her and founded the city of Thebes. This is the birth of civilization.
Well, it is a myth.
Ovid’s tale paints the bull’s nature as calm, stating “his forehead was not lowered for attack nor was there fury in his open eyes.” The bull’s expression was one of “love and peace.”
There is an argument by some that this painting eroticizes rape, that Europa’s facial expression is sexually explicit and bears “a look of ecstasy.”
The title of the work was originally Europa . The word rape was not added until fifty years after Titian’s death. Rape, or ratto, had a different meaning at the time of the painting, though; it meant abduction, to seize or take away by force.
However, in the myth, Europa did not fight the bull to stay with her father. While fearful, she did not resist. She was just another of Jupiter’s sexual conquests, the number of which is beyond counting. Leda, Danae, Callesto, Aphrodite, and Demeter were all the recipients of Jupiter’s lust.
The painting itself — how to appraise it in light of some of these arguments?
I’m relieved that it’s not clear at all that Europa is enjoying this ride! She’s holding on to Jupiter’s horn, or she’d slide down to the serpents below. She is gloriously plump, as ideal women were in those days. The cupid is chunky — no dieting here.
The bull’s eye is, I must agree, engrossing — if a bull’s eye can be said to have a personality then here’s one for you. Perhaps you might think that it’s only a muley-eyed bull, but the bull does seem to have an eye looking forward, an eye that conveys the message, “This is going to be fun!”
What do I feel seeing this? Hard to put into words. The bull is improbably gorgeous. Europa’s legs, breast, and throat are part of a lush symphony. A writhing crimson scarf ties into the soft pink sky reflecting the cherubs. It has the look of a painting that might have been created by Tchaikovsky. It is a bit hard to see the detail of the pink sky and fish below.
The Gardner was robbed early on the morning of March 18, 1990, by two men pretending to be policemen. They tied up the only two attendants, art students, and stole six pictures in about eighty-one minutes. One glorious Vermeer — The Concert , and he had only perhaps thirty-six in his total output — and a Rembrandt. They missed this painting in the next room.
JP
A Seated Scribe (1479–81)
Gentile Bellini (1429–1507)
Gentile Bellini,
A Seated Scribe, 1479–81
Pen in brown ink with watercolour and gold on paper, 18.2 x 14 x 2.6 cm
Purchase, 1907 (P15e8)
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
Photo credit: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum / Bridgeman Images
Sometimes you stumble upon a little painting that enthrals, just enthrals — often a fluke, a curious reaction, but nevertheless a real passion erupts.
Such is this, a pen and ink drawing (18 cm x 14 cm), created in a type of heavy watercolour (known as gouache).
A Seated Scribe is attributed to Gentile Bellini, though some authorities suggest that Costanzo da Ferrara from Naples is the artist. I think this is nonsense. I’ve looked at Costanzo’s stuff and Bellini’s. Gentile Bellini is so romantic that it must be his, just must be. Trust me on this.
Gentile Bellini was from a family of Venetian painters. His father, Jacopo, was famous for his use of oil paint. His brother, Giovanni, did the portrait of Doge Loredan (National Gallery, London), one of the greatest portraits of all time, and the Frick’s Saint Francis in the Desert .
Not many of Bellini’s works remain since many were large canvases that were hung in buildings that later burned. However, we know that in 1479 he was considered the most prestigious painter in Venice.
Such was his fame that when warfare between Venice and the Ottoman Empire stopped in 1479 and Venice negotiated a peace treaty with Sultan Mehmed II of Constantinople, Bellini was sent as an emissary of Venice to Constantinople for eighteen months to help cultivate good cultural relations.
Bellini was successful in Constantinople, partially because of his ability to draw patterns and lines, so important to the Eastern mind. So it was that Bellini found himself commissioned to paint Mehmed, who wanted to have his portrait done, an odd ambition for a Muslim Turk in 1480. There would be few such works, however, since the cultural thawing didn’t last beyond Mehmed. His successor considered representations of the human figure to be un-Islamic.
As well as his portrait of Mehmed, Bellini also created this work. Here is a young member of the Ottoman Court. He wears a navy caftan woven with gold, bright silks on his arms and neck (a striking mauve or light eggplant collar), and in the meringue folds of his turban, a ribbed red taj — the head gear worn during Mehmed’s reign. There is a touch of peach
