Art Series - Titian - Paintings

 

SANDI - a reader of this Blog, suggested I research and write about Titian in this series about Art. You can visit Sandi HERE.

Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio, or Titian in English, was born somewhere between 1488 and 1490 (must have been a long pregnancy!) and died on 27 August 1576.

You can see above his self portray. Considering it is in profile, he must have had a cricked neck turning round every few minutes to look himself in the mirror. Although some art experts believe he got a friend to take a Polaroid photo and he painted from that. This theory is disputed by other camera manufacturers.

He was very versatile painting portraits, landscape backgrounds and mythological and religious subjects and was famous for his use of colour - no black and white monochromes from good old Titian. It is said that he preferred to paint in red. This is because the paint was cheaper than any other colour - 53 cents a can compared to 56 cents for other colours.

Another peculiarity of Titian is that he liked to paint round about 3 o'clock.

Here's a painting of his known as "The Man with a Quilted Sleeve" which he completed in 1509 - the painting that is, not the sleeve. Just after 3 o'clock.

And here's another Titian painted in 1515 (quarter past three) known as "Portrait d'une Femme à sa Toilette"; which does not mean a woman in the toilet, but in English has been translated as "Woman with a Mirror".

This next painting was completed a little later in 1550 (ten to four). It is entitled "Venus and Organist and Little Dog". 

A most intriguing scene indeed. Venus has just finished the housework and wants to relax after a long day of cleaning, cooking and doing the washing up. 

She wants to listen to some music, so she takes all her clothes off and lies on the bed and calls in one of her minions and asks him to play the piano.

As you can see, the pianist is somewhat distracted and, because he knows the tune to "how much is that doggie in the window" by heart, he decides to take a swift look round for further inspiration whilst the lady is occupied with the dog.

The dog yaps to warn the lady, whereupon she casually says to the man, "Keep your eyes on your organ please. And whilst you're at it, would you mind drawing the curtains. I don't want anyone outside to see my behind!"

Further suggestions from my readers for artists to be researched and posted here are welcome.