W3 Flashcards
Who made this painting?
Titian
sixteenth-century artist from Venice in Italy
What is the name of this painting?
Bacchus and Ariadne
When was this made?
1520-23
“Paragone”
comparing two different art forms: painting vs sculpture
Titian himself described his mythological paintings as
‘Poesie’
the pictorial equivalent of poetry or literature, because this is art that tells a story.
at the centre the figure of the young god ____ leaping from his chariot, his cloak billowing behind him
Bacchus
Titian has done here is to give physical form to the idea of love at first sight
he object of the god’s gaze, that has inspired his leap, is this young woman, ____
Ariadne
who seems uncertain, caught in motion, looking towards Bacchus, and at the same time turning away. It is a masterful telling of an emotionally charged encounter.
Bacchus is the god of ___
ecstasy and celebration
Titian uses Ariadne’s pose to tell us more than this. Her spiralling form leads the eye out to ___
sea, where in the distance, we see the whites sails of a tiny ship sailing away.
the ship belonging to
Theseus
story of the ship
ariadne first met Theseus when he arrived in Crete to fight the minotaur that the king, her father, kept locked in a labyrinth. This should have meant certain death for Theseus, but Ariadne fell in love with the stranger and promised to help him escape. But after they fled Crete, Theseus callously abandoned her on this island,
his is why Titian shows the heroine looking so dishevelled, her robe pulled from her shoulder….her chemise in disarray. She is an abandoned princess.
After embracing Ariadne, Bacchus literally promised her ___
the stars. Taking the crown from her head, he set it as a constellation in the sky, to bring her eternal glory. With this pose, you can almost imagine it being thrown there, like a discus.
Ovid, The Art of Love major changes
Titian’s Ariadne is not fainting; Silenus is pushed into the background
Ovid, Metamorphosis
Gives us some ___
of the back story, minotaur.
Catullus, Poem 64, the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.
Any figures missing?
(little boy satyr)
The figure of the snake dancer is based on the celebrated ancient sculpture
Laocoön
What does the snake represent
It illustrates an episode from the Trojan War.
It shows the Trojan priest Laocoön and his two young sons being crushed by sea serpents. He had been the only Trojan to recognise the Trojan horse for what it was - a Greek trick – and warned his fellow citizens not to let it into the city. This angered the goddess Minerva, who was on the side of the Greeks, and she sent the sea serpents to destroy him.
Titian has transformed the agonised contortions of the priest into an ecstatic dance of celebration, turning him into the Bacchic follower described by
Catullus
This young satyr is modelled as
one of Laocoon’s sons
The twisting pose of the Laocoon-figure sets off a ____ pattern that continues through the whole painting.
dance-like
Ariadne’s pose is mirrored by the girl with the cymbals, in exactly the same pose but seen from a different angle. And mirrored by the girl carrying the tambourine.
Titian makes a claim for the superiority of painting in this painting by showing that ___
like sculpture it can show a figure from every angle. Like sculpture it can convey powerful emotion. Better than sculpture, it has the advantage of colour.
Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne was one of a group of paintings that the duke commissioned to decorate his private study in his main residence at Ferrara, a room known as the ____
camerino.
titian’s first independent contribution to the camerino was ___
The Worship of Venus,
Titian’s final contribution to the camerino was this work,
The Andrians
(Titian was also showing that he could outdo his own teacher, Giorgione, who in 1510 had painted this picture of Venus, the Roman goddess of Love)
