Joh Cho

Artist: Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)

Painting: The Penitent Magdalen

Date/period: 1560s during the High Renaissance

Present location: The J. Paul Getty Museum

Place of origin: Venice, Italy

Size: Unframed: 106.7 x 93 cm (42 x 36 5/8 in.)

The current condition of the painting is very good. Cracks in the painting are visible at close distance. However, those cracks do not distort the full picture very much.

The woman of the painting is Mary Magdalen. In biblical scripture, she was a sinner who repented her life of sin after meeting with Christ. Near her are a Bible and an ointment jar. Gert-Rudolf Flick writes in Missing Masterpieces: Lost Works of Art 1450-1900 that “According to medieval Golden Legend of Jacobus da Voragine, she [, Magdalen,] retired to the desert where she spent thirty years in penitence, refreshed by celestial food and transported daily to Heaven by angels.”

Even though the setting of remote land without any farms or buildings may not be widely known, the subject matter of Mary Magdalen, herself, is very lifelike with her non-idealized proportions as well as her strong emotions, which bring out her tears. The elegance of her hair drifts down to her lower neck and onward, and her ordinary looking town gown falls off some as she clenches it near.

All these strong emotions of possible embarrassment of her flying off, her tears of love for God, and fixed eyes of devotion towards God come together to make this painting very touching. Further exerting emotions, the worldly woman is in a remote, not so of this world, land and looking upward. This comes together, extending emotions, from of this world, Magdalen, to not of this world, God.

The thin regular lines of Magdalene help keep her life-like whereas the ticker lines in the design of her clothing emphasize material. Her natural, soft, and free flowing lines also seem to be unobstructed whereas the lines of her clothing seem, in some places, rigid and restrained.

The lines of the clouds are thick, and are in a blending motion with straight stokes. Also thick, are the lines of the brown dirt and the blue mountains. These parts of landscape seem to be comprised of building-like motion of strokes going back and forth over short distances. The book's lines are fine, thin, confined to exactness except for the upper pages and cloth ribbons.

The geometric shapes of the vase and bible serve as a base for Magdalen to depart from. The vase is oval like and circular whereas the bible is square like and rectangular. Magdalen and her surrounding landscape are organic, from life, shapes. The transcendence from material to divine goes from the bottom of material, geometric, shapes to the top of life, organic, shapes.

 Further enhancing transferring of Magdalen to go from earth to Heaven is the use of light and dark. On the left of the painting and surrounding areas, there is darkness; to the upper right and almost outside the picture, where the woman is looking, there is a light source. In a spotlight focus, this use of light shows Magdalene in a moment surrounded by darkness, looking towards a light.

Below each of her forearms, the light creates a shadow, and this exemplifies third dimension illusion. Even though there is not much shadow to the left of the painting with its darkness, there are still many shadows and shades in the painting that help make the painting more real. There is visible shadow behind her neck on the painting’s left side. In addition to the many clothing folds, which have shadows, the left and right sides of the clothing possess their own shadows near themselves. The use of shadow also help push of the picture forward like the shadow behind her neck. This creates more space in the painting. In addition, the shadows in the cloth help create deepness and extend the mass of Magdalen.

The colors used are black, achromatic, colors for the surrounding landscape with touches of green and blue, cool colors, in the upper right region, and white, neutral, color for some of the clouds and for Lady Magdalene. There are also red strips, warm colors, on the book's cover and on the Lady’s gown.

All these colors flow together in a blending like motion t o create a local scheme of a nature like setting. The female stands out from these mostly dark achromatic black colors. The neutral white color brings focus to Lady Magdalen, and her eyes bring focus to the cool blue colors.

The dark left side produces a closed space and closeness to the viewer. However, the aerial perspective in the upper right region opens up the dimensions of space for the whole picture. The colors help support this movement of space from closed darkness to open lightness that is in transition of Lady Magdalene’s character as well. The overlapping of hand over body further enhances space.

The rich texture helps support realism in the painting. Actual overlapping in coloring of the brown and black landscape creates in its own an actual texture of roughness as well as enhances the illusion of roughness within the pictorial view of the painting. Moreover, Clothing design lines of black, brown, and red strips enhance a feeling or texture that is somewhat rough. Its non-transparency also helps makes it seem warm but soft. Transparency of the cloth Magdalene holds in her right hand creates an illusion of a silk like texture. In addition, the closeness of the main white cloth to Mary's skin, and its lightness in color and transparency make the cloth seem soft. Although, Mary’s non-transparent skin makes her skin seem not as soft as the silk transparent silk or white linen, those articles of clothing give a feeling that skin is soft as well. The position of her right arm and the showing of her elbow as well as the folds of her right hand and her chin lines of her all give out a texture of skin as real as those in real life. In addition, many lines of hair help give a fine and life like hair texture.

The foreshortening of left and right sides of Mary as well as the over lapping of her hands over her body create strong mass. The chiaroscuro, use of light and shading, use in many parts of the body also help bring out the mass. The pyramid composition helps make the sides of her lower body spread out as though she takes up much space with mass.

In their book, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective, Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya, and Richard G. Tansey say that “Titian (ca. 1490-1576) […] was the most extraordinary and prolific of the great Venetian painters, a supreme colorist who cultivated numerous patrons” (556). They also say that Titian was a student of Giovanni Bellini and that “Titian completed several of Bellini’s and Giorgione’s unfinished paintings” (557). He was able to finish paintings by his master, Bellini, as well as his master’s student, Giorgione, because as Titian studied Giorgione. Giorgio Vasari writes in his book, The lives of the Artists, “[Titian] began to follow the style of Giorgione” (490) at a time when he “was not more than eighteen years of age” (490).

Besides writing about Titian’s development as an artist, Vasari also wrote about a personal visit with Titian. Vasari with his own teacher, Michelangelo Buonarroti, saw Titian and a painting that “[Titian] had just completed [of] a naked woman representing Danae with Jupiter” (500-501). Vasari says that Michelangelo did not particularly like Titian’s style of design. He goes on to write, “’If Titian […]  had been assisted by art and design as greatly as he had been by nature, especially in imitating live subjects, no artist could achieve more or paint better, for he posses a splendid spirit and most charming and lively style” (501). Vasari and Michelangelo could have been very well wrong in their thoughts about Titian’s techniques of design. In her article, “Aretino and Michelangelo, Dolce and Titian: Femmina, Masculo, Grazia,” Fredrika H. Jacobs talks about how two art critics, Carlo Ridolfi and Ludovico Dolce, each talked about Titian’s disegno, or style of design, and they each believe, “Titian was accomplished in disegno” (307).

Comments like Vasari and Michelangelo about other artist went both ways. In his article, “Titian’s Martyrdom of St Peter Martyr and the ‘Limitations’ of Ekphrastic Art Criticism,” Norman E. Land writes that “[Aretino Pietro, an Italian writer,] is dismayed by Michelangelo’s representation of nudes whose postures he finds irreverent and whose genitalia are not covered (as they are now)” (301). Aretino Pietro was a close friend to Titian. Land goes on to write that, Aretino believed showing such nudes and genitalia “is indecent and more appropriate to a brothel than to such a holy place as the Sistine Chapel” (301).

However, such harsh remarks about rival artist were somewhat ordinary during Titian’s time. Jacobs writes, “Given the circumstances surrounding the making and marketing of these paintings [, by each Titian and Michelangelo,] as well as replicas of them, it would be wrong to do otherwise [of not trying to convince people to buy one artist’s paintings over another’s]” (51). She goes on to write, “The competitive sparring between Titian and Michelangelo was very real and the stakes – patronage and status – were high” (51). Expressing an example of the criticism and competitiveness that was going on Jacobs writes, “in 1529, Duke Alfonso d’ Este of Ferrara, one of Titian’s greatest and long-standing clients, had commissioned Michelangelo’s Leda” (51). She says that this incident must have been difficult for Titian because “he had only recently produced three images of similar kind for the same patron” (51).

 Even though there was fierce competition, Titian soon got the great and loyal patron Charles V, Holy Roman emperor. Titian painted many paintings for Charles V. Charles V. died two years later after the death of his good friend Aretino. The year was 1558. In his biographical book, Titian the Magnificent, Arthur Stanley Riggs writes, “Strangely enough, the worn-out Emperor’s death resulted in good for Titian” (311). Much of Charles V. estate went to his only son, Philip II, Riggs writes that “Philip II sent work to his governor of Milan, The duke of Sessa, to pay all and arrearage on the pensions his father had given the old painter, his gesture of a belated clearing away of overdue obligations” (311).

Philip II helped Titian get some of his pensions; however, Titian still struggled throughout his life to secure the money people owed him for the paintings completed. This frustration must have affected some of his art. In 1576, a year before Titian died, Riggs writes, “Titian had written to Philip II, for the last time asking payment of claims we cannot but feel the monarch deliberately chose to ignore because he already had everything from the painter that he wanted” (354). Besides possibly not desiring any more paintings, Philip II was also busy with the Spanish Inquisition.  

Around 1960, Titian painted the Penitent Mary Magdalen. However, unpaid and wanting money, Titian sold it and made another one. Vasari writes, “When this painting [,The Penitent Mary Magdalen,] was completed, it pleased Silvio Badoer, a Venetian gentleman, so much that he gave Titian one hundred scudi to have it[…]; and so Titian was forced to paint another one, no less beautiful, to send to the Catholic king [,Philip II].” The actual pose and meaning behind the praying of Magdalen relates to money owed as well. In her book, Titian’s Women, Rona Goffen explains that “The immediate object of the prayer [of Saint Mary Magdalen] was money: Philip owed Titian some two thousand scudi, which had yet to be paid” (185). However, the praying of Magdalen is also in an earlier work of his.

The similar but nude Magdalen also has some background around reasons for change in composition. Painted around 1530-35, the Saint Mary Magdalen is at the Galleria Pitti in Florence. Goffen explains that the change from nude to clothes has to do with the surrounding politics and shifts during Titian’s time. She writes, “These two[, clothed and nude,]versions are separated by some three decades – and by the edicts of the council of Trent in 1562, which helps explain why Titian mitigated the seductiveness of the First Magdalen with the greater anguish and garments of the second” (187). The change also relates to Michelangelo. She says, “This change is due in part to the same mentality that required draperies for Michelangelo’s nudes in the Last Judgment. In Titian’s case, however, the censorship was self-imposed” (187). Self-imposed or not, Titian’s Penitent Magdalen was in high demand.

Titian and his workshop painted many copies and versions of Penitent Mary Magdalen. Gert-Rudolf Flick says, “Titian first treated the subject of Mary Magdalen in penitence around 1530 [, the nude version,] and returned to the subject at least twelve times over the next thirty-five years” (309). She lists the places of where some of the versions are found when she says, “The principal versions hang now in the Pitti Palace, Florence (1530); Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (1550) [actually 1567-68]; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (1560); and another, now destroyed, hung in the Monastery of San Lorenzo, Escorial (1561). Studio variants and copies exist of each type” (309). These different versions and many copies exist, in part, because there was much demand for the lovely painting. She goes on to say, “The numerous versions testify to the immediate appeal of the image” (309). The Penitent Magdalen, painted during Titian’s late career, shows some style changes from his earlier painting days.

Even though the Penitent Mary Magdalen is a wonderful painting, the style change and lack of colors is very different from his earlier works. Riggs says that Titian’s last phase of 1556 until his death shows both “astonishing variety of subject and brilliant treatment on the one hand” (316) and increasing reliance on his “studio to do the heavy filling-in” (316). In his article, “Titian & Van Dyck,” Jonathan Phillips helps explain the context of Titian’s time and his late style. He says, “Budgets for materials during the Renaissance were negotiated separately from budgets for labor” (25). He goes on to say,”[…] a tube of artificially manufactured ultramarine blue can be purchased today for between $3 and $8, while four ounces of refined lapis lazuli ultramarine […] costs approximately $1,300 [in today’s  equivalent dollars]” (25). Now relating the change in not being able to or wanting to spend a great sum of money on paints, Philips explains says, “Most of the paints of Titian’s later period have a more subdued palette, possibly because they were executed without commission and out of his own pocket” (25). All of Titian’s styles and changes both have their own greatnesses of their own. Titian was a genius of his time.

Bibliography

Flick, Gert-Rudolf, Dr. Missing Masterpieces: Lost Works of Art 1450-1900. London: The

British Art Journal, 2003.

Goffen, Rona. Titian’s Women. New Haven: Yale University, 1997.

Jacobs, Fredrika, H. “Aretino and Michelangelo, Dolce and Titian: Femmina, Masculo, Grazia.”

Art Bulletin 81.1 (2000): 51-58. MasterFILE Premier. Ebscohost. Cerritos College. 15 April 2004 <http://www.epnet.com>.

Kleiner, Fred S., Christin J. Mamiya, and Richard G. Tansey. Gardner’s Art Through The Ages:

The Western Perspective. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2003.

Land, Norman E. “Titian’s Martyrdom of St Peter Martyr and the ‘Limitations’ of Ekphrastic Art

Criticism.” Art History. 13.3 (1990): 293-318. MasterFILE Premier. Ebscohost. Cerritos College. 15 April 2004 <http://www.epnet.com>.

Phillips, Jonathan. “Titian & Van Dyck.” American Artist. 55 (1991): 24-32.MasterFILE

Premier. Ebscohost. Cerritos College. 15 April 2004 <http://www.epnet.com>.

Titian. The Penitent Magdalene. About 1960. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of The Artist. Trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter

Bondanella. Oxford: Oxford University, 1991.