The ''Pardo Venus'' is a painting by the Venetian artist

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

, completed in 1551 and now in the

Louvre Museum The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

. It is also known as ''Jupiter and Antiope'', since it seems to show the story of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

and Antiope from Book VI of the ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the ...

'' (lines 110-111). It is Titian's largest mythological painting, and was the first major mythological painting produced by the artist for Philip II of Spain. It was long kept in the

Royal Palace of El Pardo The Royal Palace of El Pardo ( es, Palacio Real de El Pardo, ) is one of the official residences of the Spanish royal family and one of the oldest, being used by the Spanish monarchs since Enrique III in the 15th century. It is administered by t ...

near

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

(not to be confused with the

Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...

, a purpose-built museum), hence its usual name; whether

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

is actually represented is uncertain. It later belonged to the English and French royal collections. Analysis of its style and composition shows that Titian modified a Bacchanalian scene he had begun much earlier in his career by completing the landscape background and adding figures. For Sydney Freedberg it was "probably in substance an invention of the later 1530s, though significantly reworked later; it is full of motifs and ideas that have been recollected from an earlier and more Giorgionesque time, ordered in an obvious and uncomplicated classicizing scheme." Though, if Antiope is the nude, the painting meets the basic definition of Titian's '' poesie'' series, mythological scenes from

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

painted for Philip II, the painting is typically not counted in the series, either as it was begun well before Titian used the term in a letter to the Spanish King, or because the nude is indeed Venus, in which case no such scene is described by Ovid.

Venus or Antiope?

As to the subject, Titian himself appears to describe it simply as "the landscape", and his son

Orazio Orazio is a male given name of Italian origin, derived from the Latin name ( ''nomen'') Horatius, from the Roman gens (clan) Horatia. People so named include: *Orazio Alfani (c. 1510–1583), Italian painter * Orazio Antinori (1811–1882), Ita ...

calls it "the nude woman with the landscape and the satyr", both in letters to Philip II, but later an inventory of El Pardo calls it "Jupiter and Antiope". In Madrid in the 1620s,

Vicente Carducho Vincenzio Carduccio (in Spanish, sometimes ''Vicencio'' or Vicente Carducho; 1576 or 1578–1638) was an Italian painter who spent his career in Spain. Biography He was born in Florence, and was trained as a painter by his brother Ba ...

(d. 1638, see below) referred to its subject as "Antiope and some shepherds and satyrs on a large canvas". In the correspondence of the French and Spanish ambassadors as Charles I's collection was being sold in 1649-53, the nude is "Venus". Malcolm Bull observed: "In later inventories the terms "naked woman" and "Venus" are almost interchangeable", and the presence of her son Cupid an uncertain indicator, as he often appears with other people.

Description

Giorgione - Sleeping Venus - Google Art Project 2

The painting is very large, and the figures somewhat disconnected, the composition divided into two by the tree at centre. In the right foreground we have a scene that would have been familiar to well-educated Renaissance viewers as Jupiter, having taken the form of a

satyr In Greek mythology, a satyr ( grc-gre, σάτυρος, sátyros, ), also known as a silenus or ''silenos'' ( grc-gre, σειληνός ), is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exa ...

, creeping up on the sleeping nymph Antiope, and lifting her drapery to view her naked. He will shortly rape her. Possibly the situation is only borrowed from this story, but all Titian's other mythological paintings for Philip show scenes from Ovid, where Antiope's story features (''

'', VI, 110-111). Scenes of satyr voyeurism or sexual assault, given titles such as ''Nymph Surprised by a Satyr'', are found in art, mostly later than this, but only a very rash satyr would treat the goddess Venus in this way. The painting can be compared to his ''

The Bacchanal of the Andrians ''The Bacchanal of the Andrians'' or ''The Andrians'' is an oil painting by Titian. It is signed "TICIANUS F. ciebat and is dated to 1523–1526. History The painting was made by Titian for the Sala dei Baccanali in the Camerini d'alabastro f ...

'' of 1523-24 (

), where an apparently unconscious nude in a version of the ''Dresden Venus'' pose shares the picture space with a group of revellers in a mixture of nudity, contemporary and classical dress. Venus or Antiope sleeps as yet undisturbed, not only by the voyeur, but a hunting scene above her, where hounds have brought down a stag, and immediately left of her, a satyr or

faun The faun (, grc, φαῦνος, ''phaunos'', ) is a half-human and half-goat mythological creature appearing in Greek and Roman mythology. Originally fauns of Roman mythology were spirits (genii) of rustic places, lesser versions of their c ...

with the legs of a

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

seated on the ground, in conversation with a lady in contemporary dress. Immediately beside them stands a hunter, with large dogs, and at far left another huntsman blows a horn. Over Venus' head, Cupid perches in a tree, with an arrow in his bow, apparently pointed at Jupiter. In the middle distance a naked couple, apparently both women, talk or kiss on the banks of a river. The river has a wide waterfall above the stag, and presumably then flows above the conversing couple before perhaps circling round behind the viewer to create the water behind the Jupiter/satyr, but this is not shown clearly, which is rather typical of Titian. To the right, the landscape includes a contemporary farmhouse at the top of the rise, and a distant settlement dominated by a church tower and steeple. Distant mountains complete the view, which like many Titian landscapes reflects the country between Venice and his hometown of

Pieve di Cadore Pieve di Cadore is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the province of Belluno in the Italian region of Veneto, about north of Venice and about northeast of Belluno. "Pieve" means "Parish church". It is the birthplace of the Italian painter Titia ...

in the mountains, though he does not seem to have closely depicted specific locations.

Meaning

Art historians have struggled somewhat in trying to find a coherent meaning for these disparate elements. Their incongruous combination makes it something of a test case for a long-running dispute over the extent to which Titian's mythological paintings (and to some extent those of Venetian painters in general) carry "great complexity of allegorical meanings", in the way that some works of other Renaissance artists are generally accepted to do.

Harold Wethey Harold Edwin Wethey (April 10, 1902 ― September 22, 1984) was an American art historian and educator. From 1940 to 1972, Wethey was a professor of art history at the University of Michigan. Career Born in Port Byron, Wethey received a Bach ...

was not impressed by the idea that the different elements represented different modes of life: "active" in the hunters, "voluptuous" in Venus/Antiope and Jupiter, and "contemplative" in the couple sitting on the grass. Another line of thinking is to compare Venus to the stag brought down by the hounds, the stag then becoming a ''cerf fragile'', in an old Gothic visual metaphor with the hunted stag representing the life and trials of

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

or man. This draws on a wealth of imagery in religious writings, ultimately going back to '' Psalm 41/42'': "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God..". Alternatively it can be seen as an essentially decorative piling-up of different groups of subject matter with no overall complex meaning intended, but an impressive effect.

Titian's reclining nudes

Tiziano - Venere di Urbino - Google Art Project

The painting is a development of Titian's compositions with a reclining female nude in the Venetian style. The pose of the ''Pardo Venus'', recalling a Venus pudica pose with one arm covering the genitals, is similar to that in

Giorgione Giorgione (, , ; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; 1477–78 or 1473–74 – 17 September 1510) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic quali ...

's ''

Dresden Venus Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the List ...

'', which was completed by Titian after Giorgione's death in 1510. Around 1534 Titian had painted the ''

Venus of Urbino The ''Venus of Urbino'' (also known as ''Reclining Venus'') is an oil painting by the Italian painter Titian, which seems to have been begun in 1532 or 1534, and was perhaps completed in 1534, but not sold until 1538. It depicts a nude young wom ...

'', and a similar scene from 1545, perhaps a lost recorded ''Venus'' sent to Charles V, "was the basis" for the '' Venus and Musician'' series, which exists in several versions. Unlike the others, the Cupid in most versions of ''Venus and Musician'', and probably in the ''Pardo Venus'', does allow a clear identification of the female as Venus. However, allusions to the goddess elevate such images from the profane category of

courtesan Courtesan, in modern usage, is a euphemism for a "kept" mistress or prostitute, particularly one with wealthy, powerful, or influential clients. The term historically referred to a courtier, a person who attended the court of a monarch or other ...

Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...

described the ''Pardo Venus'' as a "laboured attempt to recapture his early style", and the Dresden/Urbino pose here "much coarsened". A more original composition and physique, also begun in the mid-1540s, but with versions painted in the 1550s and perhaps 1560s, is used in the series of ''Danaë'' paintings, which Clark sees as Titian adopting the conventions for the nude prevailing outside Venice; "in the rest of Italy bodies of an entirely different shape had long been fashionable". For Clark, the Venus of the '' Venus and Musician'' versions, where the head changes direction but the body remains exactly the same, is "entirely Venetian, younger sister of all those expensive ladies whom

Palma Vecchio Palma Vecchio (c. 1480 – 30 July 1528), born Jacopo Palma, also known as Jacopo Negretti, was a Venetian painter of the Italian High Renaissance. He is called Palma Vecchio in English and Palma il Vecchio in Italian ("Palma the Elder") to di ...

Paris Bordone Paris Bordone (Paris Paschalinus Bordone; 5 July 1500 – 19 January 1571) was an Italian painter of the Venetian Renaissance who, despite training with Titian, maintained a strand of Mannerist complexity and provincial vigor. Biography Bord ...

and Bonifazio painted for local consumption."

History

In 1574, Titian had still not been paid for the painting, according to a list he sent Philip's secretary and

favourite A favourite (British English) or favorite (American English) was the intimate companion of a ruler or other important person. In post-classical and early-modern Europe, among other times and places, the term was used of individuals delegated s ...

Antonio Pérez. The painting was still in El Pardo when most of the palace burnt down in 1603, with the loss of several Titians and other important art.

(1576/78–1638), an Italian-born court painter in Spain, records that when he heard the news, the first question of King

Philip III of Spain Philip III ( es, Felipe III; 14 April 1578 – 31 March 1621) was King of Spain. As Philip II, he was also King of Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke of Milan from 1598 until his death in 1621. A member of the House of Habsburg, Phi ...

was to ask if the Venus had been lost. Told that it survived, he is said to have commented "I am satisfied, for the rest will be redone". Despite this prestige, the painting was given to

Charles I of England Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after hi ...

in 1623 when, as

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

, he made a quixotic, unauthorized and unplanned visit to

to try to acquire a Spanish bride. A copy made in London hangs in

Ham House Ham House is a 17th-century house set in formal gardens on the bank of the River Thames in Ham, south of Richmond in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The original house was completed in 1610 by Thomas Vavasour, an Elizabethan cou ...

. After Charles' execution, the valuers assessing his collection in

Whitehall Palace The Palace of Whitehall (also spelt White Hall) at Westminster was the main residence of the English monarchs from 1530 until 1698, when most of its structures, except notably Inigo Jones's Banqueting House of 1622, were destroyed by fire. H ...

found the "great Lardge and famous peece" in the "Second and Middle Privie Lodging Roome", along with the '' Venus and Musician'' now in the Prado, and valued them at £500 and £150 respectively. They were both bought on the same day in 1649 at one of the sales of Charles' art collection by Colonel John Hutchinson, who paid £600 and £165. Hutchinson was buying as an investment, and as the major continental collectors realized the situation and organized agents, he sold all his major purchases within a few years.

Alonso de Cárdenas Alonso de Cárdenas was a Spanish noble who served as the 44th and 47th (and last) Grand Master of the Order of Santiago before the title passed to the Catholic Monarchs as the need for a powerful military order outside the direct control of th ...

the Spanish ambassador, managing purchases in England a year or two later, declined to buy the ''Pardo Venus'', preferring

Correggio Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – 5 March 1534), usually known as just Correggio (, also , , ), was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sens ...

's '' Venus with Mercury and Cupid ('The School of Love')'' (now

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

, London), as "no es tan profano como la otra, Venus dormido y el Satyro" ("it is not as profane as the other, Venus sleeping and the satyr"). In 1653, Hutchinson skillfully negotiated Bordeaux-Neufville, who combined the roles of French ambassador and

Cardinal Mazarin Cardinal Jules Mazarin (, also , , ; 14 July 1602 – 9 March 1661), born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino () or Mazarini, was an Italian cardinal, diplomat and politician who served as the chief minister to the Kings of France Louis XIII and Louis X ...

's art agent, into paying £1,200 for it. It was acquired from Mazarin's heirs in 1661 by

Louis XIV of France , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of ...

, and remained in the French royal collection until this passed to the Louvre Museum.Louvre File:Tiziano e bottega, giove e antiope, detto la venere del pardo, 1551, 04 cani da caccia e cervo.jpg, The stag brought down File:Tiziano e bottega, giove e antiope, detto la venere del pardo, 1551, 02.jpg, The figures at left File:Bacanal de los andrios.jpg, Titian's ''

'', 1523–24,

Notes

References

* Brotton, Jerry, ''The Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I and His Art Collection'', 2007, Pan Macmillan, *Bull, Malcolm , ''The Mirror of the Gods, How Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods'', Oxford UP, 2005, * Clark, Kenneth, ''The Nude, A Study in Ideal Form'', orig. 1949, various edns, page refs from Pelican edn of 1960 *Cohen, Simona, ''Animals as Disguised Symbols in Renaissance Art'', 2008, BRILL,
Full PDF
*Falomir, Miguel, "Titian's Replicas and Variants", in Jaffé, David (ed), ''Titian'', The National Gallery Company/Yale, London 2003, * Freedberg, Sydney J. ''Painting in Italy, 1500–1600'', 3rd edn. 1993, Yale, *Hale, Sheila, ''Titian, His Life'', 2012, Harper Press, * Hollander, Anne, "Titian and Women", in ''Feeding the Eye: Essays'', 2000, University of California Press,
google books
*Hope, Charles (1983), "''Poesie'' and Painted Allegories" in Jane Martineau (ed), ''The Genius of Venice, 1500–1600'', 1983, Royal Academy of Arts, London. *Hope, Charles (1994), "Classical antiquity in Venetian Renaissance subject matter", in Francis Ames-Lewis (ed), ''New Interpretations of Venetian Renaissance Painting'', 1994, Birkbeck College History of Art
Louvre page
*McIver, Katherine A., in Carroll, Linda L. (ed), "Sexualities, Textualities, Art and Music in Early Modern Italy", 2017, Routledge,
google books