Jump to content

User:JulianFleming1/Diana and Actaeon(Titian)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the myth on which the painting is based, see Diana and Actaeon.

Diana and Actaeon
ArtistTitian
Year1556–1559
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions185 cm × 202 cm (73 in × 80 in)
LocationNational Gallery and Scottish National Gallery, London and Edinburgh

Diana and Actaeon is a large painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Titian, finished between the years 1556 and 1559, and is currently housed in the National Gallery of Scotland.[1] The oil painting depicts the moment of surprise in which the hunter Actaeon unknowingly stumbles into a hidden grotto where the goddess Diana and her nymphs are found bathing in a rustic fountain. Diana and Actaeon is the fourth of seven paintings made by Titian for Phillip II as a part of his poesie series and was painted at the same time and using the same style as the fifth painting in the series Diana and Callisto. In 2008–2009, the National Gallery, London and National Galleries of Scotland successfully campaigned to acquire the painting from the Bridgewater Collection for £50 million. As a result, Diana and Actaeon along with its coupled painting Diana and Callisto will remain on display in the UK, and will alternate between the two galleries on five-year terms.

Description

[edit]

The painting depicts the seminal scene from the second story in book three of the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the poem, Actaeon, grandson of Cadmus, calls off his friends after a successful hunt due to hot weather and inadvertently wanders off into the valley of Gargaphia, the sacred realm of Diana, the goddess of the hunt. Eventually, Actaeon finds himself in the woods of Boetia wherein he stumbles upon a stream and decides to follow it.[2] This stream happens to be a sacred stream that leads to a grotto where Diana and her nymphs have chosen to bathe after a long successful hunt. Without paying attention, Actaeon and his dogs soon arrive at the grotto and startle the bathing nymphs and Goddess with their presence.Reeling in surprise from the arrival of the intruder, the nymphs hurry to cover themselves while looking desperately to Diana for guidance.The Nymphys historically have been attributed as Crocale, Nephele, Hyale, Rhanis, Psecas, Phiale, and Titania, although differentiations between the seven or the whereabouts of the last two nymphs have remained unknown.[3] Diana sits at the far right of the composition with her body turned as if to hide herself from the viewer as well as her assailant. She is wearing a crown with a crescent moon on it and is being covered by a dark skinned maid servant and is accompanied by a small brown dog who barks at Actaeon from Diana’s feet. The nymphs display a variety of reactions and nude poses that help illustrate the exact moment of conflict before Diana’s next move. Furious at the thought of being seen naked by a man, Diana as a result of this incursion will then splash the unfortunate Actaeon with water, causing him to transform into a stag who is then pursued and ultimately killed by his own hounds.[4] Titian would later portray this continuation of the narrative in his 1575 paintingThe Death of Actaeon (National Gallery).

Visual Analysis

[edit]

Iconography

[edit]

The environment of Diana and Actaeon is littered with contextual symbolism that alludes to both the coming events following the confrontation as well as to artistic conventions at the time. As described in Metamorphoses, the scene takes place in a land that Ovid describes as nature in imitation of art: “From out its rocky clefts the waters flow , And trickling swell into a lake below. Nature had ev’ry where so plaid her part, That ev’ry where seem’d to vie with art.”[5] The poet’s juxtaposition of the formations of nature imitating those of Renaissance art reflect the perspective of man’s ownership over nature as well as acting as a subtle reference to the motifs that would go on to influence Titian’s Gothic adaptation of the narrative setting. In the original poem, the setting was described as “A spacious grotto, all around o’er-grown With hoary moss, and arch’d with pumice stone.” The arch itself, as described in the poem, has traditionally been depicted as a naturally occurring structure commonly referred to as “nativum arcum”; however, as a result of deep synthesis of the subject matter Titian instead substituted these natural forms by replacing the grotto with the ruins of a Gothic cathedral and adding a rusticated stone column in the middle of the fountain that the nymphs bathe in.[6] These decisions were both symbolic and stylistic due to the cultural stigmas attached to the Gothic and Rustic design styles during the Renaissance.The practice of rustication was a form of masonry design practiced since antiquity and predominantly reserved for what the Italians viewed as "artless" constructs like aqueducts, grottos, and fountains due to their designs being derivative of natural elements. [2] By positioning the column among the nymphs near the center of the composition, Titian was able to direct the viewer's gaze upwards toward the Gothic structure in the background. The gothic structure itself makes use of a groin vault as is visible in the construction of the pointed arches at both ends of the vault. The keystone of the arch facing the viewer is carved with the visage of a lion which is assumed to have been a subtle nod to the city of Venice which was an adoptive home of the artist.[4]

Formal Analysis

[edit]

Historical Context

[edit]

Series Importance

[edit]

Ovid

[edit]

The Poises

[edit]

Provenance

[edit]

Patron

[edit]

To 2005

[edit]

Diana and Actaeon is part of a series of seven famous canvases, the "poesies", depicting mythological scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses painted for Philip II of Spain (after Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor had declined Titian's offer to paint them for him).[7] The work remained in the Spanish royal collection until 1704, when King Philip V gave it to the French ambassador. It was soon acquired by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, nephew of Louis XIV, and Regent of France during the minority of Louis XV, for his collection, one of the finest ever assembled. After the French Revolution, the Orleans collection was sold to a Brussels dealer by Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans in 1791, two years before he was guillotined.[8] This dealer then exhibited many pictures from the collection (including the Titians) in London.[9]

The largest share of the collection was thus bought in 1798 by the coal-magnate Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, including this painting, Titian's Diana and Callisto (from the same mythological series of seven paintings), eight paintings by Poussin, three Raphaels and Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, aged 51.[10]

The third Duke of Bridgewater was probably inspired to buy the paintings by his nephew, Earl Gower, the ancestor of the Dukes of Sutherland. Certainly, on Bridgewater's death five years after the purchase, he bequeathed the Titians and the rest of the collection to Gower, who put it on display to the public in his London house – it has been on public display ever since. On first seeing the collection there, William Hazlitt wrote "I was staggered when I saw the works ... A new sense came upon me, a new heaven and a new Earth stood before me." On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the collection was moved from London to Scotland. Between 1945 and 2009, the Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto (with other paintings from the collection, known collectively as "the Bridgewater loan" or "the Sutherland Loan"[11]) were on long-term display at the National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh. As well as Hazlitt, during their time on public display they have inspired artists such as J. M. W. Turner[12] and Lucian Freud – Freud described the pair as "simply the most beautiful pictures in the world".[13]

2008–present

[edit]

The Sutherland collection has passed by descent to the 7th Duke of Sutherland, (most of whose wealth is contained in the paintings collection), but in late August 2008 the 7th Duke announced that he wished to sell some of the collection in order to diversify his assets.[14] He had offered them as a pair to the British national galleries at £100 million (a third of their overall estimated market price) if they could demonstrate, by the end of 2008, the ability to raise that sum – if not, the pair or other paintings from the Bridgewater collection would be put on public auction early in 2009. Within days of the Duke's decision, the NGS and the National Gallery, London had announced they would combine forces to raise the sum, initially in the form of £50 million (or a demonstration that this money could be raised) to purchase Diana and Actaeon and paid over three years in installments and then £50 million for Diana and Callisto paid for similarly from 2013.[15][16][17]

Though the campaign received some criticism for the Duke's motives or (from John Tusa and Nigel Carrington of the University of the Arts London) for distracting from funding art students,[18] it gained press support from both the tabloid and broadsheet print media in the UK[19] – imitative nude photoshoots of it were featured in both The Sun (using the newspaper's Page 3 models photoshopped onto the painting) and The Mirror (including the actor Kim Cattrall and featured in a piece by Andrew Graham-Dixon on The Culture Show).[20][21] On 14 October 2008 the appeal received £1 million from the Art Fund[22] and on 19 November this was followed by £10 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.[23] From 22 October to 14 December 2008[24] it was put on display in Room 1 of the National Gallery in London to aid the public appeal – the only other painting in this temporary exhibition was the related The Death of Actaeon from the London National Gallery's collection, and they were illustrated by the relevant passages from Book 3 of Ovid's Metamorphoses in the John Dryden translation.[25]

Speculation began when the original 31 December deadline passed without definite news and the Scottish Government's announcement of a contribution of £17.5 million in January 2009 triggered a political row, with Ian Davidson questioning the deal at a time of economic hardship.[26] There was also controversy over attempts to dilute the guarantee that the duke would sell no other of the paintings from the Sutherland Loan should the two Titians be bought.[27][28] However, on 2 February 2009 it was announced that, thanks to the deadline being extended to raise more funds and finalize the payment plan for Diana and Callisto, the £50 million had been raised and Diana and Actaeon would be acquired.[29] The final sum was made up of £12.5 million from the Scottish Government, £7.4 million from public donations, £12.5 million from the National Galleries in London, £10 million from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, £2 million from the Monument Trust, £4.6 million from the National Galleries of Scotland and £1 million was secured from the Art Fund.[29] Diana and Actaeon will thus be displayed in Scotland for five years, then in London alongside The Death of Actaeon for five years, on an alternating basis.

Titian's poesie series for Philip II

[edit]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Diana and Actaeon by Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)". National Galleries of Scotland. Retrieved 13 October 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ a b Panofsky, Erwin (1969). Problems in Titian mostly iconographic. The Wrightsman lectures. London: Phaidon [u.a.] ISBN 978-0-7148-1325-7.
  3. ^ The paintings of Titian. 3: The mythological and historical paintings. London: Phaidon. 1975. ISBN 978-0-7148-1425-4.
  4. ^ a b Wivel, Matthias (2020). Titian: love, desire, death. London: National gallery company. ISBN 978-1-85709-655-2.
  5. ^ Garth, Samuel (8 CE). Ovid's Metamorphoses In Fifteen Books (in eng). New York, NewYork: The Heritage Press (published 1961). pp. 76–79. ISBN 9781537051284. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  6. ^ Rosand, David (1977). Titian. The library of great painters. New York: H.N. Abrams. ISBN 978-0-8109-1654-8.
  7. ^ Brigstocke, 180 and 183–184
  8. ^ Brigstocke, 11
  9. ^ Jack, Ian (30 August 2008). "The industrial revolution brought Titians and Renoirs to Scotland". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 30 August 2008.
  10. ^ "Rembrandt, "Self-Portrait, aged 51" – NGS catalogue entry". Archived from the original on 19 February 2012.
  11. ^ The loan includes a total of 26 paintings, sixteen from the Orléans Collection. – Brigstocke, 11
  12. ^ Paul Hills, "Titian's Fire: Pyrotechnics and Representations in Sixteenth-Century Venice", Oxford Art Journal 2007 30(2), pp. 185–204
  13. ^ Freud, Lucian (22 December 2001). "Artists on art: Freud on Titian". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 15 May 2008. Retrieved 30 August 2008.
  14. ^ He had previously sold another Titian from the loan – the Venus Anadyomene – to the NGS in 2000.
  15. ^ Bates, Stephen (28 August 2008). "Art auction: National galleries scramble to keep Titians as duke cashes in". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 28 August 2008.
  16. ^ "Editorial: In praise of... the Bridgewater loan". The Guardian. London. 28 August 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2008.
  17. ^ "National Galleries of Scotland press release". Archived from the original on 19 February 2012.
  18. ^ Thorpe, Vanessa (16 November 2008). "Arts chiefs warn of harm from Titian crusade". The Observer. London. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
  19. ^ Jones, Jonathan (31 October 2008). "Enough vulgar Marxism – we must keep Titian's masterpiece". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 20 November 2008.
  20. ^ "Nice Titians, Kim". The Mirror. 25 November 2008.
  21. ^ "Page 3 girls brush up well". The Sun. 20 November 2008.
  22. ^ "£1 m pledge for Titian masterpiece". BBC News. 14 October 2008. Retrieved 19 November 2008.
  23. ^ "£10 m boost for Titian masterpiece". BBC News. 19 November 2008. Retrieved 19 November 2008.
  24. ^ Originally running until 30 November, the exhibition was extended by public demand on 19 November.
  25. ^ Higgins, Charlotte (23 October 2008). "£50 m appeal: Artists back bid to save Titian for nation". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 29 October 2008.
  26. ^ "Titian work sparks political row". BBC News. 5 January 2009.
  27. ^ Higgins, Charlotte (28 January 2009). "Behind-the-scenes wrangling with the duke delays Titian announcement". The Guardian. London.
  28. ^ Kennedy, Maev (29 December 2009). "Fatal flaw: why masterpieces on loan could be lost to the nation". The Guardian. London.
  29. ^ a b "Funds secured for Titian painting". BBC News. 2 February 2009.

References

[edit]
  • Brigstocke, Hugh; Italian and Spanish Paintings in the National Gallery of Scotland, 2nd Edn, 1993, National Galleries of Scotland, ISBN 0-903598-22-1
[edit]


Retrieved from "https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User:JulianFleming1/Diana_and_Actaeon(Titian)&oldid=1258467355"