F. Marriage of the Virgin

g. Disputa(Disputation over the Sacrament)

VII. Translate the text into English.

Идеалы Высокого Возрождения наиболее полно вопло­тились в произведениях Рафаэля. Всем своим творчеством художник подчеркивал красоту и гармонию человека. Рафа­эль создал возвышенный образ совершенного человека, нахо­дящегося в гармонии с окружающим миром.

В 1504 г. Рафаэль приехал во Флоренцию, где работали тогда два великих его современника — Леонардо да Винчи и Микеланджело. Многое почерпнув у них, Рафаэль создал за­мечательные изображения " Мадонн" и портреты. Портреты " Папы Юлиана II" и " Льва X" считаются наилучшими.

В 1508 г. папа Юлий II поручил Рафаэлю роспись станц - личных папских покоев в Ватикане. В 1509 художник при­ступил к работе в " Станце печати", роспись которой состоит из четырех фресок. Это -" Богословие" (спор отцов церкви о причастии), " Поэзия" (изображает величайших поэтов клас­сической древности и итальянского Возрождения), " Правосудие" (фреска представляет основоположников свет­ского и церковного законодательства) и " Афинская школа" (собрание философов и ученых античности). Росписи в станцах являются одной из высочайших вершин искусства Высо­кою Возрождения.

" Сикстинская Мадонна" — одно из самых вдохновен­ных произведений художника. В этой картине сочетается жизненная правдивость образа с чертами идеального совер­шенства.

В последние годы жизни Рафаэль помимо живописи за­нимался также архитектурой, в которой проявил себя как один из крупнейших мастеров своего времени.

VIII. Summarize the text.

IX. Topics for discussion

1. Raphael as the artist of the High Renaissance ideal of harmony.

2. Raphael's frescoes.

3. The High Renaissance heritage.

UNIT VIII TITIAN (1490-1576)

The monarch of the Venetian School in the sixteenth century was Titian. A robust mountaineer came to Venice as a boy from the Alpine town of Pieve di Cadore and lived well into his nine­ties. The young painter was trained in the studios of both Gentille Bellini and Giovanni Bellini. Then he assisted Giorgione with the lost frescoes that once decorated the exteriors of Venetian palaces.

Once independent, Titian succeeded in establishing colour as the major determinant. Although he visited central Italy only in 1545-46, Titian was aware, probably, by means of engravings, of what was going on in Florence and Rome and assimilated High Renaissance innovations to his own stylistic aims. Titian generally began with a red ground, which communicated warmth to his col­ouring; over that he painted figures and background often in bril­liant hues.

Titian's life was marked by honours and material rewards. He made himself wealthy. His palace in Venice was the centre of a near-princely court, fulfilling the worldly ideal of the painter's standing as formulated by Leonardo da Vinci. In 1553 Titian be­gan his acquaintance with the Emperor Charles V. There is a leg­end that the Emperor, on a visit to Titian's studio, stooped to pick up a brush the painter had dropped. Titian was called twice to the imperial court.

An early work, painted by Titian about 1515, is known as Sacred and Profane Love. The subject of this enigmatic picture has never been satisfactorily explained. Two women who look like sisters sit on either side of an open sarcophagus, which is also a fountain in the glow of late afternoon. One is clothed, another is nude save for a white scarf. The shadowed landscape behind the clothed sis­ter leads up to a castle, toward which a horseman gallops while rabbits play in the dimness. Behind the nude sister the landscape is filled with light, and huntsmen ride behind a hound about to catch a hare, while the shepherds tend their flocks before a village with a church tower, touched with evening light. Cupid stirs the waters in the sarcophagus-fountain. The picture becomes a glorification of the beauty and redeeming power of love. Sometimes it is inter­preted as the passage from virginity through the water of suffer­ing, a kind of baptism, to a new life in love.

Titian made a series of mythological paintings for a cham­ber in the palace of the duke of Ferrara. One of these, the Baccha­nal of the Andrians, of about 1520, is based on the description by the third-century Roman writer Philostratus of a picture he saw in a villa near Naples. The inhabitants of the island of Andros dis­port themselves in a shady grove. The freedom of the poses (within Titian's triangular system) is completely new. Titian has taken the greatest visual delight from the contrast of warm flesh with shim­mering drapery and light with unexpected dark.

Like his mythological pictures, Titian's early religious paintings are affirmations of health and beauty. The Assumption of the Virgin, 1515-18, is his sole venture into the realm of the colos­sal. It represents the moment when the soul of the Virgin was re­united with her dead body. Above the powerful figures of the Apostles on earth, Mary is lifted physically into a golden Heaven on a glowing cloud by numerous child angels, where she is awaited by God the Father. The bright reds, blues, whites of drapery, the rich light of the picture carry Titian's triumphant message through the spacious interior of the Gothic Church of the Frari in Venice.

In the Madonna of the House of Pesaro, 1519-26, Titian applied his triangular compositional principle to the traditional Venetian Madonna group. The symmetry is broken up by a radi­cal view from one side. The scene is a portico of the Virgin's pal­ace. At the steps plunging diagonally into depth Titian painted the kneeling members of the Pesaro family and an armoured figure who gives the Virgin as a trophy a Turk, taken in battle. The col­umns are seen diagonally, their capitals are outside the frame. At the top clouds float before the columns, on which stand child an­gels with the Cross. The colours are rich and deep.

Titian's portraits do not often sparkle with colour as the male costume of the sixteenth century was black. In his Man with the Glove Titian's triangular principle is embodied in the balanced relationship of the gloved and ungloved hands to the shoulders and the youthful face. The carefully modelled hands and features are characteristic of Titian's portraits. Even in this picture, domi­nated by black and by the soft greenishgray background, colour is everywhere dissolved in the glazes, which mute all sharp contrasts.

A subject that occupied Titian in his mature years is the nude recumbent Venus - a pose originally devised by Giorgione. In 1538 Titian painted the Venus of Urbino for the duke of Camerino. The figure relaxes in ease on a coach in a palace inte­rior whose inlaid marble floor and wall hangings make gold, greenish, soft red-and-brown foil for her beautiful body, the floods of her warm, light brown hair. Pure colour rules in the picture of Titian's middle period. In his later years form appealed to Titian less; substance itself was almost dissolved in the movement of col­our.

In 1546 Titian painted a full-length Portrait of Pope Paul III and his Grandsons. Undoubtedly, this painting was carried to a point that satisfied both artist and patron. The brushstrokes are free and sweeping. But the question still arises whether the picture is really finished. The sketchy technique characteristic of the back­grounds in Titian's early works was applied by the artist to the whole picture. Veils of pigment transform the entire painting into a free meditation in colour. Colour indeed, is the principle vehicle of Titian's pictorial message.

In the works of his extremely old age, form was revived and colour grew more brilliant. Titian's late paintings of pagan sub­jects are unrestrained in their power and beauty. The devices of rapid movement and excellent colour, ignoring details were used to increase emotional effect in the very late Crowning with Thorns, probably painted about 1570, six years before the artist's death. The hail of brushstrokes creates cloudy shapes. The agony of Christ and the fury of his tormentors are expressed in storms of colour. The last religious works of Titian reached a point beyond which only Rembrandt in the seventeenth century could proceed.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Titian [PtiS@n]; Giorgione [dÆ o: rPdÆ ounei]; Venus [PvÖ n@s]; Cupid [Pkjü pid]; Venice [PvÖ n@s]; Venetian [viPnÖ S@n]; Gothic [goï ik]; bac­chanal [Pb{k@nl]; Veronese [ver@uPneizi]; sarcophagus [sÓ Pkof@g@s]; Naples [neiplz]; Alpine [P{lpain]; Susannah [sü Pz{n@]; profane [pr@Pfein]

NOTES

Sacred and Profane Love - " Любовь земная и небесная"

Bacchanal of the Andrians - " Вакханалия"

Assumption of the Virgin -" Ассунта"

Madonna of the House of Pesaro - " Мадонна Пезаро"

Man with the Glove - " Юноша с перчаткой"

Venus of Urbino - " Венера"

Portrait of Pope Paul III and his Grandsons - " Портрет Папы Павла III с Алессандро и Оттавио Фарнезе"

Crowning with Thorns - " Бичевание Христа"

TASKS

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the fol­lowing statements true or false.

1. The subject of the Sacred and Profane Love has been sufficiently determined.

2. Titian never ventured into the realm of the colossal.

3. The recumbent pose was originally devised by Leonardo.

4. The colours in the Madonna of the House of Pesaro are deep.

5. Titian's portraits sparkle with colour.

6. Titian's last religious works have never been surpassed.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. Where did Titian come from? Where was he trained?

2. How did Titian implement Leonardo's ideal of the painter's standard? Was he treated like equal by the princes of his time? Can you prove it?

3. What mythological pictures are analysed in the text?

4. What does the Sacred and Profane Love represent? What is there in the background? What does Cupid do? What does this picture glorify? What colours dominate in this painting? How is this work of art interpreted?

5. What is depicted in the Bacchanal of the Andrians?

6. What religious paintings are described in the text? What is depicted in these pictures? What differs one picture from another? How are Madonnas shown? What do these pictures symbolize?

5. What portraits are mentioned in this text? How did Ti­tian portray the sitters? Where did Titian apply his triangular principle?

6. What did Titian's latest work depict? What devices did Titian use to express the agony of Christ and the fury of his tor­mentors?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

the exteriors of Venetian palaces; to foil for; brushstrokes; free meditation in colour; pagan subjects; freedom of poses; by means of engravings; sarcophagus; carefully modelled hands; mythological and religious pictures; to break up the symmetry; a radical view from one side; to mute all sharp contrasts; the rich light of the picture; the picture is interpreted as; a triangular prin­ciple; veils of pigments; a palace interior; in the mature years; to apply a sketchy technique to; movement of colour; inlaid floor, wall hangings; a recumbent pose; altarpieces; shimmering drapery.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

картины на мифологические и христианские сюжеты; звучная живописная гамма; в зрелом возрасте; тенистый пей­заж; инкрустированный пол; шпалеры; лессировка; тщательно выписанные руки; принцип треугольника; заказать картину; применить технику наброска к; алтарные образа; картина трактуется как; творческое наследие; нарушить симметрию; движение цвета; подчеркнуть путем контраста; фасады вене­цианских дворцов; приглушать яркие краски, грунтовка.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) to disport; to foil for; recumbent; determinant; to glorify; allegorical; shimmering; characteristically; frescoes; to redeem;

b) to contrast with; reclining; to worship; to entertain; element; mythological; glowing; to protect; murals; predominantly.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Titian's works of art. Match them up to the given titles.

1. The soul reunited with the body to be lifted corporally into Heaven.

2. The agony of Christ is expressed in storms of colour.

3. The figure relaxes in ease on a coach in a palace interior.

4. The triangular principle is embodied in the balanced relation ship of the gloved and ungloved hands to the shoul­ders and the youthful face.

5. The people disport themselves in a shady grove.

6. Two women sit on either side of an open sarcophagus.

7. The columns are seen diagonally.

8. The sketchy technique was applied to the whole picture.