CONTENT
p. 2-4 |An introduction to my research
Research subjectResearch questions Research method
p. 3-11 |Chapter I Alfonso d' Este and Philip II
Paintings with cothurniTwo series of mythological paintings Conclusion chapter 1
p. 12- 16 |Chapter II Venice and Rome
Titian's trip to RomeContemporary works Classical sculpture Conclusion chapter 2
p. 17-26 |Chapter III Texts and friends
Introduction chapter 3 part ICothurni: history and associations If the shoe fits
Tragedy and Titian
Conclusion chapter 3 part I
Introduction chapter 3 part II Revival classical theatre Titian's translations Titian's friends
Conclusion chapter 3 part II
p. 27-28 |Conclusion ''Fare le scarpetta''
p. 29-31 |Bibliography
Images in a separate document.
AN INTRODUCTION TO MY RESEARCH
Tiziano Vecellio (
1488/90 - 1576), more commonly known as Titian, was an important
renaissance painter from the painting school of Venice. Titian was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini and took inspiration from him and other contemporary Venetian painters like Giorgione. But Titian would eventually turn away from his Venetian inspirations to create his own unique style. During his career he kept developing his style of painting and towards the end of his life his brushstrokes became broader and freer, while from afar the paintings remained clear compositions. He died in 1576 and was probably in his eighties.
Titian was born in the small town of Pieve di Cadore, but moved to near-by Venice when he was 10 years old. At the time Venice was a cosmopolitan city. Titian had an international clientele, which meant he had to travel often, though he preferred to stay in his hometown.
Among his important patrons were Alfonso d' Este (the Duke of Ferrara) and the Spanish crown prince Philip II. Both of them commissioned Titian to create a series of mythological paintings. Apart from these two series there are not many mythological scenes in his oeuvre.
He has painted many reclining Venus figures, both in landscapes and on beds, and also pastorals, which was a genre inspired by classical antiquity. However the series for Philip II and Alfonzo d' Este don't just depict individual characters from mythology, like these works.
They are inspired by stories from antiquity, read in translation, and actually depict these mythological stories. The first series was requested by Alfonzo in the 1520s, when Titian was just in his thirties. The other series was made much later in Titian's career. Philip II asked for a series of mythological paintings inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses and Titian began working on this in 1551. The paintings for Philip II are called the poesi series.
Research subject
Now I'll discuss what's interesting about these two series of mythological paintings for my research. In the second series, the one for Philip II, Titian repeatedly depicts a very specific type of shoe. They look like typical boots, but the toes are exposed. The little strap between the big toe and the next one reminds of a slipper.
1This type of shoe is present in several of these works (in four of the six finished paintings for Philip II and in an unfinished one) though they vary in colour and decorative elements. But Titian is clearly painting the same type of shoe in this series. I've found that this type of footwear derives from classical antiquity and is called cothurnus. The shoes were typically worn and thus associated with hunters in ancient Greece. After tragedian Aeschylus started using them in Greek theatre the shoes became part of the standard tragedic costume. As the
1 See image 1.
Romans took over the Greek traditions, they also started using cothurni in their plays. Besides a link with theatre the shoes were usually associated with specific deities.
In some way, the shoes became known to Titian and he depicts them in several of his later mythological paintings. What I would like to investigate in my research is why Titian depicted them frequently in these later works but not a single time in his series for the Duke of Ferrara or other earlier works. From looking at Titian's oeuvre it becomes clear that he only ever depicted the shoes in mythological paintings and only those made after 1551 (such as the poesi paintings). What changed between the first series of mythological paintings and the second? How did Titian come to know this type of footwear? And did he know the original associations and meaning of the shoes? My hypothesis is that Titian actually started depicting the shoes because of his trip to Rome in 1545-46. And I am quite certain he did know the meaning behind the shoes. For my research I will use the following questions.
Research questions
My main question is: What is the meaning of cothurni in Titian's paintings?
And I want to discover this meaning with the following chapters and sub-questions.
1.) Alfonso d' Este and Philip II
How and in what kind of scenes/stories does Titian depict cothurni?
When does Titian start depicting cothurni in his works?
2.) Venice and Rome
Where did Titian pick up the cothurni?
3.) Texts and friends
Does Titian depict cothurni historically accurate?
How did Titian know the original function of cothurni and their connection to Greek tragedies?
Research method
For my research I have used books on Titian and on Greek theatre for background information. But for the most part I took information and deductions from looking at the artworks themselves.
So-far some research has been done on clothes in Titian's works and on the connection between Titian's paintings and the genre of tragedy. For example Puttfarken, in his book Titian & tragic painting, writes about the connection between Titian's works and the genre of tragedy. I have used this book mainly for my third chapter.
However I haven't found any research done on the specific cothurni shoes in Titian's works.
CHAPTER 1| Alfonso d' Este and Philip II
How and in what kind of scenes/stories does Titian depict cothurni?
When does Titian start depicting cothurni in his works?
Titian has not painted many mythological scenes in his career, apart from two series of mythological paintings commissioned by noble patrons. The first was a series of bacchanals commissioned by the Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d' Este, at the start of his career. The second, near the end of his career, was a series of mythological subjects known as the poesi for the crown prince of Spain, Philip II. It's only in mythological scenes that Titian depicts the cothurni. With mythological scenes I mean the paintings depicting specific classical stories and not the paintings generally inspired by classical genres and deities, like Titian's reclining Venus figures and his pastoral scenes. More specifically, Titian only painted cothurni in the mythological scenes made for Philip II and the ones made after this commission. So Titian did not paint any cothurni in the paintings for the Duke of Ferrara, or in other earlier works for that matter. And yet he painted them multiple times in the works for Philip II and in two paintings made after the poesie series.
Paintings with cothurni
2The works containing cothurni are the following.
- Perseus and Andromeda,
(c. 1554 - 1556), oil on canvas, 175 x 189.5 cm, Wallace collection (London)- Venus and Adonis,
(c. 1554 - 1556), oil on canvas, 175 x 189.5 cm, Wallace collection (London)- Diana and Actaeon,
(c. 1556-1559), oil on canvas, 184.5 x 202.2 cm, National Gallery (London)- Diana and Callisto,
(c. 1556-1559), oil on canvas, 187 × 204.5 cm, National Gallery (London)- Death of Actaeon,
(1559-1575), oil on canvas, 178.8 x 197.8 cm, National Gallery (London)- Flaying of Marsyas,
(c. 1570s), oil on canvas, 220 × 204 cm, Picture Gallery of Archbishopric Chateau (Kroměříž, Czech Republic)The first four of these paintings were part of the poesi pictures, the mythological paintings for Philip II. Which means that four of the six paintings in total for this series contain cothurni.
The fifth painting, the Death of Actaeon, was made as a sequel of Diana and Actaeon and would have been part of the poesi as well. However the picture was never finished and never sent to Spain. The last work, Flaying of Marsyas, Titian probably painted for himself.
So why did he depict them in these paintings and not in the ones for the Duke of Ferrara?
2 See images 2 to 7.
First I'll discuss in more depth the pictures containing cothurni; the type of scenes, the stories, the characters wearing the shoes, etc. Then I'll discuss the two commissions and their
differences and similarities.
PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA | see image 2
Perseus and Andromeda, (c. 1554 - 1556), oil on canvas, 175 x 189.5 cm, Wallace collection (London)
After defeating Medusa, Perseus (the son of Danae and Jove) flies over the lands of the Ethiopian peoples. He suddenly sees a beautiful girl chained to a rock in the ocean. He immediately falls in love with her. In the picture you see Andromeda fastened to the rock in a stormy ocean. Her light skin and frontal pose are in contrast with Perseus' colourful clothes and his downward flight. Only referred to by Ovid, Andromeda is punished for her mother's words. Cassiope had said she and her daughter were more beautiful than the Nereid's and to appease them again Andromeda had been tied to a rock and was to be sacrificed to a sea monster. Perseus fights the monster to receive Andromeda's hand in marriage. As described in Ovid, Perseus is wearing winged sandals.
Blown around the earth three times, Perseus landed in the land of Atlas to rest and take off the winged sandals he'd borrowed from Mercury and the nymphs.
- Ovid, Metamorphoses (8 A.D.)
3These winged sandals are shaped like cothurnus shoes, with added wings. One of the gods who helped Perseus on his quest was Mercury, the messenger god. It was Mercury who lent Perseus his own winged shoes as well as his winged helmet. In Giovanni Bellini's Feast of the Gods (which I'll discuss later in this chapter) Mercury is wearing cothurni too.
4Venus and Adonis| see image 3
Venus and Adonis, (c. 1554 - 1556), oil on canvas, 175 x 189.5 cm, Wallace collection (London)
Venus, the goddess of love, falls in love with a young hunter named Adonis, after Cupid accidentally scratched her with one of his arrows. They hunt together, but Venus warns him about dangerous animals. One day Adonis goes hunting by himself and he is killed by a wild boar. Venus cries out from her chariot in the sky and turns him into a flower, an Anemone.
It seems to be Titian's own invention that Venus doesn't leave Adonis (as told in Ovid's Metamorphoses), but the other way around. And in the sky you can see Venus' chariot, as a foreshadowing. In this painting it's Adonis that is wearing cothurni.
3Publio Ovidio Nasón, Metamorphoses, transl. A. S. Kline.
4 Publio Ovidio Nasón, Metamorphoses, transl. A. S. Kline.
There are more versions of this painting, by Titian and by his workshop, and in all of them Adonis wears cothurnus shoes and in the one for Phillip II it seems Cupid wears them too.
Although in later pictures Cupid's shoes become less like cothurni and look more like pieces of armour around his calves. So on the one hand Titian follows Ovid's text, on the other he adds drama by making Adonis leave Venus. He might have looked at the pictorial tradition on Roman sarcophagi of the same subject.
5Venus' awkward position in particular might derive from ancient reliefs.
6Examples of these I found however, did not contain Adonis wearing cothurni.
7Diana and Actaeon and Death of Actaeon| see images 4 and 6
Diana and Actaeon, (c. 1556-1559), oil on canvas, 184.5 x 202.2 cm, National Gallery (London) Death of Actaeon, (1559-1575), oil on canvas, 178.8 x 197.8 cm, National Gallery (London)
Actaeon is a young hunter who during one his hunting trips stumbles upon the sacred bathing cove of Diana, the goddess of hunting and also the Virgin goddess. He sees Diana bathing with her nymphs. Angry that he saw her naked, Diana splashes water in his face. Actaeon is transformed into a stag and is chased down by his own hunting hounds. They eventually catch up to him and kill him.
The first part of this story, Actaeon seeing the naked Diana, is depicted in Diana and Actaeon.
The climax of the story, Actaeon being transformed into a stag and being killed by his own hounds, is depicted in Death of Actaeon. In the first painting it is Actaeon who wears the cothurnus shoes and in Death of Actaeon Diana wears them.
Diana and Callisto | see image 5
Diana and Callisto, (c. 1556-1559), oil on canvas, 187 × 204.5 cm, National Gallery (London)
Callisto was one of Diana's nymphs when Zeus, disguised as Diana, raped her. When Diana found out Callisto was no longer a virgin she was sent away. She bore a child, Arcas. Out of revenge for her husband's adultery, Hera turned Callisto into a bear. When her son Arcas was hunting he almost killed her with a spear, but Zeus prevented this from happening by turning them both into star constellations: the Great and the Little Bear. In the painting Callisto is being dragged away by Diana's nymphs and Callisto is the one wearing cothurni.
5 http://www.titian.org/venus-and-adonis.jsp
6 http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/846/titian-tiziano-vecellio-venus-and-adonis-italian-about-1555-1560/
7 See images 8 and 9.
Flaying of Marsyas| see image 7
Flaying of Marsyas (c. 1570s), oil on canvas, 220 × 204 cm, Picture Gallery of Archbishopric Chateau (Kroměříž, Czech Republic)
It is uncertain if this painting was commissioned or if Titian in this stage of his life (he was probably in his eighties) left commissions to his workshop and only painted subjects for himself. In any case, this painting depicts the story of Marsyas. Marsyas was a satyr who challenged Apollo to a musical contest. He lost and was punished by Apollo. Here he is seen being flayed. The story is described in Ovid's Metamorphoses, but the painting was probably not part of the poesie series. The person being flayed is obviously Marsyas, but the identity of the ones flaying him is uncertain. Perhaps Apollo is the person playing the lyre, or the person flaying Marsyas' chest. It is the latter who wears a laurel crown, typical of Apollo.
8Titian was probably inspired by Giulio Romano's version of the subject for the composition and the figures.
9And here it is Apollo that flays Marsyas' chest too, accompanied by a standing figure. And the figure with the lyre is just a follower of Apollo. If indeed he looked at this work, which is clear from his composition, than we may assume that in Titian's work the figure flaying Marsyas' chest is Apollo. And Apollo is wearing cothurni in Titian's painting (and not in the one by Romano).
Two series of mythological paintings
The first commission for a series of mythological paintings in Titian's career was a series of bacchanals for the Camerino d'Alabastro of the Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso d' Este. Previously the Duke's sister, Isabella d' Este, had decorated a studiolo with mythological paintings from leading artists of the time. Alfonso wanted to do something similar, however all the Central Italian artists he asked didn't deliver: Michelangelo did not sent him the painting he had promised and Raphael and Fra Bartolommeo both died leaving behind only designs. So Alfonso turned to Northern painters from Ferrara and Venice instead. He already owned a painting by Titian's master Giovanni Bellini, a Feast of the Gods, which Titian partly
repainted to fit the backgrounds of his own works. When Alfonso asked Titian for a painting, this was in the 1520s, Titian was barely in his thirties and relatively unknown. However after finishing his Worship of Venus, the Duke was so pleased with the result that he asked Titian for two more paintings: a Bacchus and Ariadne, and a Bacchanal of the Andrians.
10/118 Charles Hope, Titian (2003).
9 See image 10.
10 See images 11 to 13.
11 Charles Hope, Titian. (2003).
Titian's second commission for a series of mythological paintings came from the crown prince of Spain, Philip II. This was thirty years later in the 1550s so by now Titian had more
experience and status. In November 1550 Titian, by now over sixty, went to Augsburg where he received a commission for a series of mythological paintings.
12These were later known as the poesi for their link with poetry. At the time most religious subjects would be referred to as devozione and historical subjects as istoria. Titian's paintings however are inspired by the classical poetry from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and therefore Titian refers to them as him poesi.
Vasari also used the term ''poesi'' to generally refer to paintings of myth, or in other words paintings with subjects drawn from Greek and Roman poetry. No other contemporaries of Titian used the term ''poesia'' to refer to a specific work of art. At the time, people were interested in the status of painting. Painters compared their work with other disciplines, like poetry, because it was believed that painting wasn't an intellectual art. They promoted the notion of “ut picture poesis” (as is poetry so is painting) to prove that their work is
intellectual too. Through this comparison Titian showed his art to be the visual equivalent of poetry: he too uses his mind and a variety of sources to create something original. His works have the same freedom of invention as poetry: expressing tragic content in beautifully economical and pictorial terms.
13/14In total Titian painted six poesi pictures for Phillip between 1551 and 1562: Danae, Perseus and Andromeda, Venus and Adonis, the Rape of Europa, Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto. They were probably planned in pairs. For example the pictures of Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto were mentioned together in letters and the landscape of one continues in the other. Shortly after finishing Diana and Actaeon Titian started working on a sequel, the Death of Actaeon. Nowadays it is assumed the work was never finished on the account of the missing bow string and the fact Titian never sent it to Spain.
For both commissions Titian had to base himself on classical literature. For Alfonso he had to use classical authors such as Ovid and Philostratus the younger. For Philip II Titian
specifically used Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the case of Alfonso, Titian had to follow a scheme of bacchanalian subjects designed by Alfonso, with the help of the court humanist.
1512 Filippo Pedrocco, Titian: The complete paintings.
13 Charles Hope, Titian. (1980).
14 Thomas Puttfarken, Titian & tragic painting.
15 Namely Mario Equicola, one of the most admired classical scholars of the Renaissance, who previously helped Isabella with her chamber.
Charles Hope, Titian. (2003).
In this commission Titian was in competition with his own contemporaries and with artists from the past. On the one hand he had to use descriptions of fictive classical paintings, so- called Ekfraseis. And on the other hand Titian used designs of his predecessors:
Michelangelo, Raphael and Fra Bartolomeo.
16Even though Titian doesn't always follow the descriptions and the designs of his predecessors exactly, for he still adds something of his own, he nevertheless was quite restricted in this commission.
This is in stark contrast with the commission by Philip II. Here Titian had almost unlimited freedom in choosing his subjects and how to depict them, as long as he based himself on Metamorphoses and painted enough naked females, which seemed to be Philip's only requests. In the letters between the two it's even clear that Philip at times did not know what Titian was working on and only later Titian would tell him the subject of the painting he was working on and when he would sent in to Spain (because he was allowed to paint them in Venice). Titian still took inspiration from the classics (Ovid, and possibly classical sculpture too) and from his contemporaries (f.e. Michelangelo's Danae), like he did for the Ferrara paintings. But now he had more freedom in picking his inspirations, his subjects and scheme, and how he would depict these subjects.
17In the case of the Ferrara pictures I can assume Titian had limited freedom because he wasn't yet very famous and he had to fit Alfonso's scheme and the works of his predecessors. In the case of the poesi pictures however Titian already had status and was given practically unlimited freedom in his choice of subjects and how he would depict them, as long as they derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses. So every choice he made here could be attributed to him. For my research this is an important notion, because then I can attribute the choice for the cothurnus shoes to him too. Furthermore, these two commissions also show that Titian had to become familiar with classical sources in general - like classical texts and statues - and took inspiration from them.
Conclusion | Chapter 1
Titian doesn't depict the cothurnus shoes in Alfonso's bacchanals, even though his master Bellini did depict them in his Feast of the Gods. In this scene Mercury wears them, and he is often associated with the shoes. In his poesi series Titian ascribes them to the figure of Mercury too (though Perseus wears them). Titian had repainted Bellini's picture, so he must have seen the shoes, yet he does not use them in his bacchanals or in any of his works until his
16 He used the modello Raphael made for Bacchus and Ariadne and Michelangelo's cartoon for the Battle of Cascina for his Bacchanal of the Andrians.
17 Filippo Pedrocco, Titian: The complete paintings.
commission for Philip II. It is not the fault of Alfonso's commission being too strict; he also made other small changes in his scheme. And it's not that he had not seen the shoes, because they were in the work of his master and in works of other Venetian contemporaries too, as I will discuss in the next chapter. So something happened between the 1520s and 1550s that made Titian suddenly add cothurni to multiple mythological paintings.
Just to summarize: the cothurni are only depicted in paintings inspired by mythological stories, but not every mythological painting contains cothurni. Titian only depicts them in works made for and after the poesi series for Philip II (so after 1551), and just in the ones mentioned above.
In my next chapter I will argue that Titian starts depicting the shoes because of his visit to Rome in 1545-46. And in my last chapter I will discuss the influence of new developments in the field of theatre during the 1550s on the way Titian uses the shoes in his works .
CHAPTER 2 | Venice and Rome
Where did Titian pick up the cothurni?
There are several artists in Venice who depict cothurni in their works. For example, Bellini
does so in his Feast of the Gods, which I discussed in the previous chapter. In another work
Bellini, inspired by a roman sarcophagi, depicts several figures with cothurni. Giorgione, a
student of Bellini and an inspiration for Titian, also depicts the shoes, though not very often.
Sebastiano Luciani del Piombo, (who later moved to Rome) was a pupil of Bellini and
Giorgione and he also depicted the shoes several times. Tintoretti uses the shoes in his version of the Flaying of Marsyas. Vittore Carpaccio painted them in his 10,000 martyrs of Mount Ararat.
18Titian must have seen the works of his Venetian ''colleagues'' and therefore he could have seen the cothurni shoes in these paintings. And he could have used them in his own works, either in the mythological paintings (f.e. his pastoral scenes, the Ferrara bacchanals) or even in religious scenes, like the other Venetian painters did too. But he didn't use them a single time until his poesi series for Philip II. Therefore, it's more likely he saw the shoes somewhere else (not in Venice) and this had such an impact on him that he decided to use the shoes repeatedly in his later works. I would like to argue that he actually saw the shoes in Rome, during his visit in 1545-46. He would be summoned to Augsburg four years later by Philip II (in 1550) and would start working on his poesi series in 1551. So only five years after visiting Rome for the first time in his life he started working on a major program for mythological paintings. And in these works he starts using the cothurni for the first time and he uses them multiple times, like someone who just discovered something new and wants to explore it and experiment with it.
So I will now discuss Titian's trip to Rome and which works, from which artists, he had likely seen during his stay. I have based myself on Vasari and on more recent monologues
concerning Titian.
Titian's trip to Rome
Titian went to Rome in October 1545 and stayed until May or June of 1546. He was invited by cardinal Farnese to visit Rome, but Titian was always a bit opposed to traveling. His main reason for visiting Rome was for the benefice of his son Pomponio, whom he wanted to get into priesthood.
In 1545 Titian was already in his late fifties and he had acquired such a status that he was invited to stay in the Belvedere Palace where he was greeted by the pope and his family.
Vasari describes Titian's visit to Rome. He served as Titian's guide and showed him around in
18 For examples of Venetian works with cothurni see images 26 to 37.
Rome.
19Titian saw ancient treasures and contemporary works. Michelangelo's Last Judgment for example had only been finished four years prior to Titian's visit. Aretino, one of Titian's friends, told him to visit the Sistine chapel and a number of other places and works of artists like Michelangelo and Raphael.
20According to Charles Hope seeing all these works in Rome had little influence on Titian.
21After his visit, Titian continued developing his colorito: his colour technique, typical for Venetian painting. In contrast artists from Central Italy were more interested in disegno, in other words drawing or design. Vasari writes that on one occasion he and Michelangelo visited Titian's studio in the Belvedere, where Titian was working on a Danae. The comments by Michelangelo and Vasari on Titian's work show the clear distinction between colorito of Venetian painters like Titian on the one hand and disegno of Central Italian artists, like Michelangelo on the other hand.
So according to Hope, Titian continued his focus on colorito even after his trip to Rome. Most authors in fact write that Titian was not affected by his stay in the Eternal City. Probably because he was already mature and famous. However it is stated in Hope's book that Titian's colour pallet for Diana and Callisto and Diana and Actaeon differs from other works, and that he must have been inspired by contemporary works from the Venetian painter Paolo Veronese. Even though Titian was already old, he was not an ''isolated figure'' and he could still respond to recent artistic developments in Venice.
22So why would his age prevent him from taking inspiration from artistic practices in Rome. Hope also mentions that Titian was not influenced much by his trip to Rome, because he already knew all these works from ancient antiquity and contemporaries through prints and drawings which he had assimilated many years before.
23However, I don't believe that seeing the works in real life, even though you have seen the drawings, does not affect you in the least. I can speak from my own experience when I say that seeing a good quality photograph online, which is even closer to the actual thing than a print or drawing, does not have the same effect as seeing the work in real life. Moreover, this was the first time Titian could see so many examples of an ancient past all at once. In Rome he was able to see a greater amount and variety of classical works than in his beloved Venice. And this must have had some impact on him.
2419Giorgio Vasari, De levens van de grootste schilders, beeldhouwers en architecten / Dl. 2, Van Correggio tot Titiaan.
20Bruce Cole, Titian and Venetian painting
21 Charles Hope, Titian (1980).
22 Charles Hope, Titian. (1980).
23Charles Hope, Titian (1980).
24 Arthur Pope, Titian's rape of Europa.
Arthur Pope in his book on Titian's Rape of Europe , writes that Titian must have had recollections of classical sculpture in the back of his mind when painting this picture.
The putti, dolphins, floating scarf and even to some extent the general arrangement and plastic quality in the rendering of the form recall late classical reliefs
(...)although his approach was less theoretical than that of the scientific Florentines and although the atmosphere of a picture by Titian is not that which one breathes in a museum of antiquities.
25This would have been the case for his other mythological works too: he probably had some of these images fresh in his mind. And according to Cecil Gould, Titian's Venus and Adonis shows some influence of mannerism from his visits to Rome and Florence.
26Even before visiting Rome, Titian took inspiration from Central Italian artists like
Michelangelo and Raphael. For his bacchanals he used their drawings as a starting point, even though he used them to create something entirely his own. So he was already interested in their works, used them for inspiration and he rivaled them too. Why wouldn't it have changed him when he saw these works in real life?
Contemporary works
Titian had seen works from contemporary painters in Rome. Which ones exactly is mostly the work of guessing, but nevertheless I will try to name several works which Titian had likely seen. Aretino had recommended him to see works by Michelangelo and Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo. Titian saw the Last Judgment by Michelangelo, and he was so impressed by this work that he used it as inspiration for later works.
27If Titian saw this work, he must have seen the rest of the Sistine chapel too and other works in the Vatican.
Unfortunately most of the figures in Michelangelo's works do not have any footwear. There is however a statue of Moses who wears cothurni-like shoes. And there are two statues in the San Lorenzo in Florence by Michelangelo that wear cothurni.
28The tomb statues for two Medici brothers were inspired by classical sculpture. They look like Roman emperors. After Rome, Titian visited Florence and he was (at least according to Vasari) equally as impressed here as he was in Rome.
29In the same chapel are two statues called Dawn and Night and according to Filippo Pedrocco there is a clear reminiscence of these sculptures in Titian's
25 Arthur Pope, Titian's rape of Europa.
26 Cecil Hilton Monk Gould, Titian.
27 Bruce Cole, Titian and Venetian painting, 1450-1590.
28 See images 14 and 15.
29Giorgio Vasari, De levens van de grootste schilders, beeldhouwers en architecten / Dl. 2, Van Correggio tot Titiaan.
Danae and in Venus and Adonis.
30Then Titian might have seen the statues of the Medici brothers by Michelangelo too.
Secondly Titian could have seen works by Raphael, like the ones made for the Vatican.
31And since Titian definitely visited the Vatican in addition to the Sistine Chapel he must have seen Raphael's famous fresco: the School of Athens. In this fresco several figures are wearing cothurni. Titian might also have seen St. Michael Vanquishing Satan, in which St. Michael is wearing cothurnus shoes. It was commissioned by Pope Leo X and restored from 1537 to 1540, so it must have been in quite good condition in 1545-46.
32Another Raphael painting containing cothurni is The Deposition.
33It was in Perugia till the beginning of the seventeenth century, but Titian might have seen prints or drawings of it.
Classical sculpture
Besides works of contemporaries, Titian could have also seen the shoes in antique works of art, like sculptures or sarcophagi. For example, for the figure of Diana Titian could have gotten inspiration from classical sculpture. He depicts Diana several times in his later mythological works, but only once with cothurni on: in the Death of Actaeon. Diana is usually depicted with a bow and arrows and with her girdle tied up. This particular type of depiction was called the ''Diana succinta''. In other words, ''Diana in pursuit'', when she is hunting. And indeed, only in Death of Actaeon is she seen ''hunting'', namely on Actaeon. In this type of depiction Diana also wears cothurni. I'm discussing these examples partly to show that this type of depiction, with her short robe and cothurni shoes, is very old and is used over and over again. So it is a strong tradition. And partly to show that Titian could have looked at these examples, because there are so many of them. Though it is hard to find out for each of these sculptures if they were indeed in Rome during the time Titian was there, the fact that there are so many of them and that many of them are in Roman museums now makes it likely that Titian has seen at least one or two of these.
34Conclusion | Chapter 2
In the 1530s a community of artists was assembling again in Rome for all kinds of antiquarian practices. They would sketch the classical architecture and artworks in Rome. And around the
30 Filippo Pedrocco, Titian: The complete paintings.
31 See images 16 and 17.
32 See image 18.
33 See image 19.
34 See images 22 to 25.
second half of the century artists frequently ''quoted'' ancient sculptures in their works.
35Maybe Titian caught onto this too. Titian already quotes classical sculpture, like the Laocoon statue for example, in his bacchanals. Perhaps when seeing the works he knew from prints and drawings in real life he was inspired by them even more. He only starts depicting cothurni in works after his trip and therefore it seems likely that he saw the shoes in Rome and
remembered them when painting his poesi series and later mythological works. What's even more interesting is that Titian doesn't just start using the shoes, he uses them in a very consistent and conscious way. Titian could have seen the cothurni in the works of his Venetian and Roman contemporaries. However, these painters usually do not distinguish between classical and biblical scenes and add them to either.
In my next chapter I will discuss that Titian did know the history and associations of cothurni and therefore used them differently than his contemporaries. He had a further understanding of the shoes than just their visual language. I will also discuss how he possibly knew the meaning of the shoes.
CHAPTER 3 | Texts and friends
Does Titian depict cothurni historically accurate?
How did Titian know the original function of cothurni and their connection to Greek tragedies?
Introduction chapter 3, part I
Whether Titian did start depicting the cothurni because he saw them in Rome or for different reasons, it is a fact he starts depicting them in his mythological works after 1551. I've already named and described all of Titian's works containing the shoes, but in this chapter I would
35 Marcia B. Hall, After Raphael: Painting in Central Italy in the Sixteenth Century.
like to show that Titian also knew the history and associations of cothurni. Firstly I will discuss the history of the shoes and how they were originally used. Then I'll show that Titian (in contrast to his contemporaries) knew their meaning. I will also talk about the link between Titian's paintings with cothurni in them and ancient tragedy. And lastly I will discuss how Titian might have known the meaning of the shoes.
Cothurni: history and associations
A cothurnus (Gr. Kothornos) is a type of shoe or buskin reaching to the calf or knee, usually with open toes.
36It was made to fit either foot and was generally laced up to make them fit the legs. Ancient statues show how they could be decorated in a variety of ways. The shoes were originally hunter boots. They were also associated with horseman and with men of rank and authority. The playwright Aeschylus later made them part of the costume of tragic actors. In ancient statues the shoes have normal soles. Aeschylus however added a platform to heighten them, probably by inserting slices of cork, so the actor wearing them would stand out from the other actors.
37The exact height usually depended on social status and importance of the character.
38The Romans continued this tradition. And the shoes became so connected with Greek plays that a ''tragedy'' was generally called a ''Kothornos''.
39But their original
connection with hunters wasn't lost completely. Poets and artists made it part of the costume of Diana, goddess of the hunt, and the Amazons. The shoes were also worn by Mercury and Bacchus.
40Greek tragedies were performed for Bacchus, which is probably why he was also associated with the cothurni.
41/42If the shoe fits
As described in chapter one, the characters wearing the shoes in Titian's pictures are: Diana, Adonis, Actaeon, Callisto, Apollo and Perseus (which he lent from Mercury). Apart from Apollo (which I'll discuss below) all of them have connections with hunting or with cothurni in general. Diana was the goddess of hunting and, judging from ancient sculpture, already associated with these shoes. Adonis is a hunter who gets killed during a hunting trip. Callisto
36 See image 38.
37 David J. Symons, Costume of Ancient Rome.
http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/fashion_costume_culture/The-Ancient-World-Rome/Cothurnus.html
38 David J. Symons, Costume of Ancient Rome.
http://www.fashionencyclopedia.com/fashion_costume_culture/The-Ancient-World-Rome/Cothurnus.html
39 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cothurnus
40 Perhaps because Mercury was the god of travelers (and cothurni are associated with people who walk and run a lot)..
41Judith Winzenz, The Attic Theatre.
42 https://www.britannica.com/art/stagecraft/Sound-design#ref466849
was one of Diana's nymphs, so a huntress too, and she was almost killed by her son while he was hunting. Ovid even describes her as the huntress who now fled from hunters. Actaeon is a hunter too, who is punished by the goddess of the hunt, Diana. Namely he is turned into a stag and is devoured by his own hunting hounds. And Perseus lent the shoes from Mercury, who is associated with cothurni too. As I already mentioned Bellini depicts Mercury with cothurni too in his Feast of the Gods. But as I already argued, Titian probably didn't pick up this idea from Bellini, because there is also a link between Bacchus and cothurni, yet Titian doesn't use the shoes in any of his bacchanals. And even if Titian did not know of the connection between Bacchus and cothurni yet, if he had picked up the cothurni in the works of Bellini, he could have added them to any of his pictures, religious or mythological, like other artists did too.
Therefore, he probably had not picked up the shoes from his master, because he only uses the shoes much later and after his trip to Rome.
And then there's Apollo. He seems to be an exception to the rule. How is Apollo associated with hunting and with cothurni? It does seem likely that this character is indeed Apollo. He is wearing a laurel and is positioned in the same spot as Apollo in Giulio Romano's picture. But why did Titian add the cothurni? Another painter who might have looked at Romano's work for inspiration was Tintoretto, a former apprentice and later rival of Titian.
43Tintoretto received a commission from Titian's good friend Pietro Aretino. He was to paint a ceiling panel for Aretino's Palazzo Bollani, which was situated in Venice. This painting was probably the Contest between Apollo and Marsyas.
44In this painting, Apollo is wearing cothurni too.
Apparently, in contrast to Titian, Tintoretto didn't rely much on classical texts, so he probably did not know the actual meaning of the shoes. But he did use them here. The panel was painted between 1544-45, so much earlier than Titian's painting, which he made in the 1570s.
45
Since it was made earlier and for a good friend of his, Titian might have seen this work by Tintoretto. It is of course a ceiling panel so I am not sure how well you could see details like shoes from such a distance. But there is still a possibility that Titian saw the panel and saw this depiction of Apollo wearing cothurni. Another possible explanation is that Apollo is the brother of Diana, the goddess of hunting, so perhaps that was a good enough link to give Apollo the cothurni too. And in a Roman fresco, of which an etch was made in 1540, Apollo seems to wear something around his legs, that reminds of the kind of decorative borders of
43 See image 37.
44Tom Nichols, Tintoretto: Tradition and Identity.
45 Tom Nichols, Tintoretto: Tradition and Identity.
other cothurni. Perhaps there were more of these type of depictions and perhaps these were known to Titian.
46Of course these are all guesses. It is still uncertain to me why Apollo wears the shoes, and thus why Titian was not consistent in this one example. Apart from this all characters that do wear them in Titian's paintings have a very close connection to hunting or to cothurni in general. But there is also a close link between Titian's paintings containing cothurni and ancient tragedy.
Tragedy and Titian
In Ancient Greece and later in the Roman Empire, tragedy was an important genre in theatre.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle described tragedy in his Poetics as follows.
Tragedy is: the imitation of an action that is serious and complete, achieving a catharsis (‘purification’) through incidents arousing pity and terror.
— Aristotle, Poetics (4th century
BCE)
47In other words, a tragedy is a serious play that represents the downfall of the protagonist. A lot of these stories have an unhappy ending, though not always. Sometimes good characters get a happy ending, but the unhappy endings, usually involving the protagonist's death, are more typical of tragedies.
A current definition is given by the Encyclopædia Britannica:
Tragedy: branch of drama that treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual. (...)Although the
word tragedy is often used loosely to describe any sort of disaster or misfortune, it more precisely refers to a work of art that probes with high seriousness questions concerning the role of man in the universe.
48And in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (3 ed.) :
By 472, the date of the earliest surviving play, Aeschylus' Persians, tragedy had acquired the dignity and seriousness of which Aristotle spoke, stemming from its concern with human predicaments and their relation to divine ordinance, as told in myth.
4946 See image 39.
47 http://www.oxfordreference.com.proxy-ub.rug.nl/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803105239118
48 https://www.britannica.com/art/tragedy-literature
49M. C. Howatson, The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (3 ed.) .
So tragedies deal with the problems of mankind and especially those connected with our relation to the gods or more abstractly to Fate. This could easily be applied to the stories Titian depicts and the way he depicts them. Each painting contrasts a divinity (gods and half- gods) versus a human. In some stories the humans are loved by the gods, in others they are undeservedly punished by them. A point Ovid makes with his Metamorphoses is that gods have a great influence on us humans, good or bad. This message is most present in his story of Arachne, which seems to comment on how power deals with poetry (such as how Augustus dealt with Ovid's work at the time). In any case, the stories all deal with interactions between divinities and humans. And so do Titian's paintings.
In tragedies the protagonist is usually a human, with a fatal flaw (hamartia), which is usually excessive pride (hubris). And because of this they are punished by the gods (nemesis).
50In many tragedies however the protagonist doesn't seem to deserve his fate (f.e. Oedipus).
51This is also illustrated in Ovid's Metamorposes; Actaeon accidentally sees Diana naked, Callisto is sent away for being raped, etc. According to Aristotle we feel bad for these characters, because their misfortune was undeserved. And we would be afraid because we could identify with them. Or as he put it (in translation):
‘Pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves’
- Aristotle, Poetics(4th century
BCE)
52He also said that through experiencing these strong emotions we are ''purified'' of them. This effect is called catharsis.
Titian's paintings depict tragedies and usually he chose to depict the moment before or during the downfall of a character, a moment that decides or shows his Fate. Actaeon walks into Diana's cove; the moment deciding his fate of being devoured by his hounds. Callisto is being dragged away by the other nymphs, after which she will give birth to the son who would almost kill her. We pity these characters and we identify with them. They are human and they are powerless against the will of the gods. For example Andromeda is punished for something her mother said. The gods are not always just. These characters are punished or meet a terrible fate, without deserving it. And we pity them. Titian's characters show us violent emotions
53and we feel for them. His paintings fit the Aristotelian notion of the tragic. Titian expert Philipp Fehl describes the effect of the poesi paintings on the viewer:
50M. C. Howatson, The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (3 ed.) .
51http://www.oxfordreference.com.proxy-ub.rug.nl/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803105239118
52http://www.oxfordreference.com.proxy-ub.rug.nl/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803105239118
53 Hope, Titian. (2003).
Fehl champions a way of 'looking at pictures poetically, open to pity and fear'. (...) 'It is the daring presence of his nudes in human actions, evoking passion, marvel, pity and fear, and involving a reversal of fortune leading either to inevitable suffering or even death, or to salvation (...)'.
- Quoted and rephrased by Thomas Puttfarken, Titian and Tragic Painting. 54
But when looking at them we still get a feeling of awe, a kind of catharsis. Aristotle's Poetics were widely discussed after 1545 in Venice. It inspired the production of new 'Aristotelian' tragedies. This practice is also connected to Ovid's Metamorphoses. During the late 1540s Italian poets turned away from historical subjects in favour of fictive themes, especially those taken from Metamorphoses.
55The fact that Titian was friends with people who were active in this practice too, translating old and writing new tragedies, I will discuss in the next chapter.
The tone of the poesi paintings also fits the subjects. The paintings that precede the tragic moment of the story are lighter and more colourful (Diana and Actaeon, Diana and Callisto), than the paintings in which the tragic action takes place (Death of Actaeon, Perseus and Andromache). So Titian consciously made the paintings tragic, both in subject and in mood.
In this sense they are also very different from the Ferrara bacchanals. These pictures had light subjects, dealing with love and marriage. And the poesi pictures have subjects derived from ancient tragedy. The works aren't just the painterly equivalent of poetry but of tragedy as well.
In this sense they are connected to cothurni in its meaning of ''tragedy''.
56Important Greek tragedians were Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. It was Aeschylus who gave the actors a more dignified costume. And he made cothurni the typical shoes for tragedy.
Actors in classical times were either barefooted or wore cothurni.
57Therefore, in Greek tragedy the cothurni helped to set one actor apart from the rest. In Titian's paintings it is always the main character of a scene that wears the shoes; Perseus saving Andromeda, Actaeon discovering Diana, etc. These are the central figures. So the main character wears cothurni and the other characters are barefooted (f.e. Diana's nymphs, Andromeda) as was the case in ancient tragedy. Titian, like the tragedians, used to shoes to direct more attention to specific characters.
The only exception of this idea would be the picture of the Death of Actaeon. Logically Actaeon would be the main character of the scene, but he is placed in the background. Diana
54 Thomas Puttfarken, Titian and Tragic Painting.
55 Thomas Puttfarken, Titian and Tragic Painting.
56 Thomas Puttfarken, Titian & tragic painting.
57M. C. Howatson, The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (3 ed.) .
is placed in the foreground even though Ovid doesn't even mention her presence. This seems to be Titian's own invention. Diana is the one wearing cothurni. As I have already discussed, she if often associated and depicted with the shoes, so they are fitting, even though she is not the central figure in this scene. It is possible however that Titian still chose to give her the cothurni to create a more obvious parallel between this picture and the Diana and Actaeon.
The poses of Diana and Actaeon are mirrored in the two pictures. Perhaps to further deepen this connection he gave Diana the cothurni to symbolize that in this scene she is the
''protagonist''; in contrast to being vulnerable and the object of Actaeon's gaze, here she is in power, looking at the vulnerable state Actaeon finds himself in.
Conclusion | Chapter 3, part I
It seems clear from his consistent usage that Titian knew the meaning of cothurni. In comparison, his contemporaries did not use the shoes consistently. They used them in both religious and mythological scenes and even if they did make a distinction and used them mostly in mythological paintings they did not make a connection with hunters or ancient tragedy. So Titian, even though he probably saw the shoes in works from his contemporaries knew more about the meaning that they did. How did Titian know the meaning? I will discuss this in the following paragraphs.
Introduction chapter 3, part II
As I discussed, Titian knew the meaning of cothurni, even though his contemporaries
presumably did not. How? One possibility is that he read about cothurni. In the middle of the sixteenth century there was a revival of classical theatre in Venice, during which some ancient texts, including plays, were translated in Italian. Titian might have read these translated plays and picked up the meaning of cothurni in these. Or maybe he even saw one being performed.
Another possibility is that Titian learned about it from his friends, since he was befriended with the two figures most important in this theatre revival. I will discuss both possibilities.
Revival classical theatre
The Renaissance was a revival of antiquity. People looked back at classical examples and
tried to imitate and even rival them. Artists looked at art from ancient times for inspiration,
but they also used literature from the past. Humanists had started to translate classical texts,
including plays, so modern readers could have access to them too. Until the sixteenth century
classical dramas were largely forgotten. They weren't yet translated, so only people who could
read Greek would be able to read them, and this was not a large group of people. But in 1525 three of the most famous Greek tragedies, Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris and his Cyclops and also Sophocles' Oedipus Rex were translated in Italian. Their rediscovery and the fact that more people could read them gave rise to a revival of Greek theatre and an interest in classical dramatic traditions.
58Writers started writing their own dramas. But until roughly the mid- sixteenth century these plays weren't meant to be performed, but rather read to a small group of people.
59These so called closet dramas were popular, because people believed that tragedies would be enjoyed more by a select group of intellectual listeners. The most
important closet dramas were written by Seneca. A ‘closet drama’ also refers to the translated versions of plays that were rather read than performed.
60The writers of these plays would leave out many of the theatrical elements of the story and wrote them more as novels.
Then after discovering an original version of Aristotle's Poetics in the sixteenth century people began to understand the conventions of ancient theatre better. So playwrights started writing their own tragedies for audiences again and therefore had to think more about visual elements of the story. In 1515 the humanist Gian Giorgio Trissino was the first to write a play with ancient Greek tragedy conventions. Another good example is Trissino, who wrote a Poetics in 1529. In 1541 the first renaissance tragedy was performed: Giambattista Cinzio Giraldi's Orbecche. It was a great success and noble patrons started to commission writers to write new tragedies for them that could be performed on stage. Products of these commissions were Guglielmo Dolce's Marianna (1565), Orsatto Giustiniani's Edipo (1585) and Pietro Aretino's Orazia (1546).
61Noble patrons also asked renaissance artists and architects, like Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto to design sets, stages and theatres. In the middle of the fifteenth century scholars discovered texts by Vitruvius. And in 1545
Sebastiano Serlio published his Trattato de architettura, a work that concentrated entirely on the practical stage of the early sixteenth century. So humanists looked at antiquity for literary models and for theatrical architecture and design. Palladio too was a renaissance architect interested in theatre. He was a founding member of the Academia Olimpica, a group of scholars in Vicenza, near Venice, who recreated classical plays. He had designed permanent and temporary theatres in Venice and Vicenza.
62/6358https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/renaissance-theater-italy
59https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/renaissance-theater-italy
60Phyllis Hartnoll and Peter Found, The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre (2 ed.).
61https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/renaissance-theater-italy
62 https://www.britannica.com/art/theater-building/Developments-of-the-Renaissance
63 https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/culture-magazines/renaissance-theater-italy
Titian's translations
In 1553 Ludovico Dolce, a good friend of Titian, published an Italian paraphrase of Ovid's Metamorphoses titled Le Trasformationi. Which was around the same time Titian was
painting his poesi series. It is possible Titian used this translation for his paintings. However, I could not find a mention of cothurni in this translation. In a modern English translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses the scene were Diana undresses for her bath has been translated as follows:
while two unfasten the sandals on her feet
64They've used the word ''sandals'' in their translation. The original Latin line ''vincla duae pedibus demunt'' however roughly translates to:
They take off the ties of the two feet
This could refer to sandals, but doesn't specifically name shoes. Dolce's translation, which Titian might have used, contains the following translation:
Due le scalzaro l'uno e l'altro piede,
65The word ''scalzaro'' means ''take off'' or literally means ''bare-foot''. So this translates to:
Two take them off her feet or Two bare her one foot and the other.
This doesn't give any indication of the type of shoes she was wearing, which would leave the choice of footwear open to Titian. Therefore in Diana and Actaeon she is barefoot, following the translation and the original description by Ovid. And in Death of Actaeon she is wearing the cothurni.
The Greek tragedies that were translated in the sixteenth century - Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris and his Cyclops and Sophocles' Oedipus - do not name cothurni or any other type of shoe. Nor does Aristotle's Poetics and nor do the tragedies written by Titian's contemporaries, like Giraldi's Orbecche (1541) and Pietro Aretino's Orazia (1546).
But another possible way Titian knew the meaning behind cothurni was from his friends.
Titian's friends
Titian had a large house in Venice, where he often invited friends and family. Two of the friends he often invited were Ludovico Dolce and Pietro Aretino. And these were two of the most important figures for the revival of classical theatre in Venice.
64 Publio Ovidio Nasón, Metamorphoses, transl. A. S. Kline.
65Publio Ovidio Nasón , Le Trasformationi di M. Lodovico Dolce con privilegii, transl. Lodovico Dolce.
Aretino (1482-1556) came to Venice in 1527 and became great friends with Titian. He wrote about Titian in his letters and he was like a publicity agent for him.
66Aretino was a learned man and as mentioned he also wrote a play: Orazia (1546). Titian probably knew Aretino's work and Aretino could have told Titian a thing of two about Greek dramatic traditions.
Therefore some knowledge of the costumes of classical tragedies could have been known to Titian through Aretino. Cothorni were after all the embodiment of ancient tragedies. And Titian was also friends with Ludovico Dolce, who wrote the Italian paraphrase of Ovid's Metamorphoses that I just discussed. So he could have learned about cothurni from Dolce too.
Conclusion | Chapter 3, part II
Judging from the consistent way Titian uses the cothurni in his works, he knew their meaning.
He knew they were associated with hunting and with certain deities and uses them for these characters only. And he knew their history in ancient theatre because he uses them in his tragedic paintings (the ones inspired by and depicting tragedies). And he uses them in the same way Aeschylus and later tragedians used them, namely to set one actor apart from the rest by giving the shoes to the protagonist while the other characters are barefooted. How Titian knew the original meaning of cothurni isn't clear. He could have read about them in recent translated plays and texts. He might have actually seen them if they were already used in performances then.
67And since he was friends with the two most important figures for the revival of classical theatre in Venice he could have learned about the shoes' meaning from them too.
66 Filippo Pedrocco, Titian: The complete paintings.
67 Unfortunately I couldn't find what specific costumes would have been used in performances of classical plays in sixteenth century Venice.
CONCLUSION | ''Fare le scarpetta'' What is the meaning of cothurni shoes
Titian depicts cothurni shoes in paintings depicting mythological stories. But only in the
works made for and after the poesi series for Philip II (so after 1551), and just in the ones that
I have discussed. The fact that he only depicts them in works made after 1551 and the fact that
they are classical shoes has led me to the suggestion that Titian picked up the shoes during his
stay in Rome in 1545-46. Most authors I read stated that Titian wasn't influenced at all by this
trip. I disagree. Titian finally saw all these works of art, classical and contemporary, of which
he had only seen ''infusions''. This must have influenced him to some degree. And he clearly
only depicts cothurni in works made after this trip. Moreover, judging from the way he used
the cothurni in his paintings - the type of characters who wear them and the type of subjects
and scenes - he had both visual and deeper knowledge of the shoes. Titian knew their
connection with hunters and with specific deities (f.e. Diana, Actaeon, Mercury). And he
knew their association with Greek and Roman tragedies. All of the characters wearing them
(apart from Apollo) have clear associations with hunting or with the shoes in general. Titian
uses them only in tragedic scenes in the same manner classical tragedians used them, namely
to set the main character apart from others. And he seems to be unique in this knowledge. He seems to be the only painter from his time
68to depict the shoes consistently in a way that shows he knew their meaning. So it is clear that Titian, in contrast to his contemporaries, knew the meaning and history of the shoes and showed his knowledge in these paintings.
Since there was a revival of classical theatre during the 1550s in Venice, Titian might have learned about cothurni through translated plays, through performances of classical plays or through his friends, who were important figures in this revival.
So what I want to prove first with my research is that Titian indeed had knowledge of a specific type of classical footwear; he didn't just know the visual language like many of his contemporaries, he actually knew the meaning of these shoes. And there are other examples I came across, that seem to suggest Titian had knowledge of classical clothing. For example, Greek hunters would frequently were a purple scarf around their left arm. And the two male, mortal hunters in the poesi series, Actaeon and Adonis, both wear a purple scarf around their left arm. It would be interesting to do more research on attributes in the poesi series and their possible classical sources.
One book I read mentioned that, different from intellectuals such as Michelangelo, Titian was more simply, just a painter.
69I disagree with this notion. I think my research has, at least to some degree, shown that Titian had knowledge of the classical past and was able to apply this to his paintings. And I think Titian might have become more antiquarian after his trip to Rome. He was already known to use classical sculpture as an inspiration for poses of figures, but it seems that after Rome he quotes antiquity in a meaningful and conscious way.
Titian transformed words and images left from classical antiquity into unique works of art.
Paintings that are the visual equivalent of poetry and of classical theatre as well. I am definitely biased, but I think Titian's mythological paintings are some of the most beautiful depictions of tragedies ever made. Even nowadays we get a kind of joy from watching even his most gruesome scenes. Perhaps because it has the same effect as classical plays. We look at these pictures the way people used to look at classical theatre. We still feel pity and fear, but we are also cleansed of them through looking at these pictures. Apparently humans haven't changed so much. If the shoe still fits...
68 Based on the contemporaries of Titian I have studied.
69Arthur Pope, Titian's rape of Europa.
