Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538

Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538, oil on canvas, 119.20 x 165.50 cm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)
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Closed Caption:

(piano playing)
Steven: We're in the Uffizi and we're
looking at one of the great Titian's,
the Venetian master, who has painted here
in an image which is often referred to
as the Venus of Urbino, which is
a title that the painting acquired
later in its life.
Beth: So we don't really know who she is.
Steven: Right and there's
not much to convey the idea
that she's a Venus except that she's nude.
It seems to be a protective title that
makes it acceptable subject matter.
Beth: Which was often the case in
the history of our "after this"
that one could look at a image of a nude
woman and think about ideas of beauty,
safe from a sense of improper looking
by understanding the figure as Venus
instead of a nude woman.
Steven: But it's clear that
whoever she is, this is a painting
that is about sensuality, it's about
the sort of the beauty of the physical.
She is gazing directly at us
with a coyness and a directness
that is really alluring.
Beth: It is and the way that her
long, silky hair frames her breasts
and the way that she holds
the flowers near her skin
and the sensuality of
the sheet and the couch,
it feels like a very sensual environment.
But mostly the sensuality I think emerges
because of the incredible softness
that we sense from the paint.
Steven: So Titian is a
Venetian as we mentioned,
he's coming out of this
extraordinarily rich tradition,
I'm thinking about the work of Bellini
and the way in which these artists
borrowed from actually the painting
of Flanders and brought oil paint
to Italy and began to experiment in
very sophisticated ways with glazing,
creating a softness as you
said but a richness of color
and a visual sensuality, which is the
perfect vehicle for the sensuality
of the subject matter here.
Beth: And by glazing we're talking about
a specific way of applying the paint
where the artist applies
very thin layers of oil paint
that are almost translucent,
one on top of the other.
Titian was supposed to have painted
up to 10 to 15 layers of paint.
So the figure glows in a softness,
her outlines and in the modeling,
that enhances that
sensuality, as you said.
Steven: Titian's use of chiaroscuro
in combination with that glazing
and the softness has created
this real sense of her flesh
that is so central to this painting.
We have also, Titian setting up
this tradition of the reclining nude
that will be the given for virtually
the rest of Western art history.
We can certainly think of Manet
and lots of people in between.
She is creating a kind of
soft diagonal, a kind of curve
that moves from the upper left
to the lower right of the canvas,
propped up by pillows.
Beth: The canvas itself is divided
in two, with a scene taking place
in the background so our eye moves down
her body and then to the background.
Steven: And those figures in the
background on the right really balance
the mass of her body on the
left without distracting from it
because they are in the distance, so
it's a really successful composition.
Beth: And like so many other
artists later who are going to paint
the female nude, there is a little
bit of playing fast and loose
with human anatomy here.
Her torso is too long.
Steven: Her feet are tiny.
Beth: (laughs) That's true, her feet
are tiny, I hadn't noticed that before.
It's funny that it's not
something we notice immediately.
What we notice as soon as we look
at it is her incredible beauty
and sensuality and sexuality and it's
only when we start to really look
closely and pay attention
that we notice those problems.
Steven: So think about all the artists
that are looking back to this painting
and this kind of painting.
I'm thinking about Courbet,
we've already mentioned Manet.
Beth: Ang.
Steven: That's right, so many people
who are reinventing what Titian did.
Beth: And Titian himself is looking
back at a painting by Giorgione,
so this emergence of the
female nude as a genre
really begins in the Renaissance.
(piano playing)