Bellini & Titian, Feast of the Gods, 1514 and 1529

Giovanni Bellini and Titian, The Feast of the Gods, 1514 and 1529, oil on canvas
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(National Gallery of Art)

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Dr. Steven Zucker

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Closed Caption:

(jazz music)
Dr. Zucker: We're in the National
Gallery in Washington, DC
and we're looking at one
of their great canvasses.
It's the Feast of the Gods
and there are actually three painters
involved here, two principle.
The main artist is Giovanni
Bellini, the Venetian
and then ultimately, his student Titian,
who was one of the really
great Renaissance masters.
Dr. Harris: He completed the
landscape, who Bellini was -
Dr. Zucker: After he died.
Dossi painted a bit of the landscape,
which I think then Titian painted over.
Dr. Harris: Right.
Dr. Zucker: Ultimately.
Dr. Harris: This was done for
the Duke of Ferrara, so this is -
Dr. Zucker: Adesti.
Dr. Harris: Right, so this is
commissioned at the highest levels
of the aristocracy in Venice.
Dr. Zucker: But this was
not a public commission,
this was for his study, which
is to say it was allowed
to have a kind of private subject matter,
which is a kind of
playful sexuality, really.
Dr. Harris: It is, yeah.
Dr. Zucker: This is a
Bacchanal, Feast of the Gods.
Dr. Harris: Figures eating
and drinking and ...
Dr. Zucker: Cavorting.
Dr. Harris: Cavorting and having pleasures
of various kinds in the landscape.
Dr. Zucker: All the
figures are identifiable -
Dr. Harris: Gods and nyads -
Dr. Zucker: Saters.
Bacchus, interestingly
enough, is the young child
on the lower left in blue.
Dr. Harris: Collecting some wine.
Dr. Zucker: Of course, appropriately.
The large figure just to the
right (crosstalk) is Mercury.
If you look closely, there's all
kinds of wonderful interludes.
The color is very Venetian in
its brilliance and in the way -
Dr. Harris: Its jewel-like qualities.
Dr. Zucker: Yeah, that's a
result of this privileged place
between Italy, between the
Florentine tradition on one hand-
Dr. Harris: On the north and
of course it's oil painting,
because the colors could
not have been so saturated -
Dr. Zucker: If it was tempera.
Dr. Harris: If it had
been tempera or fresco.
Dr. Zucker: The figures really
feel part of the landscape.
They're not an excuse for landscape.
They're very much embedded.
Dr. Harris: Although they
do kind of form this friese
along the single plane, it
looks very classical to me,
like a classical relief sculpture,
but it's an incredibly complex
composition with 18 or so figures
who are all in various positions
and there's a kind of -
The figures are interrelated
and there's nothing stiff
about the composition.
This is really leading into
what I consider the style
of the high Renaissance,
where the figures have
a kind of fluidity and grace.
Dr. Zucker: They really
are representing people
with their own motivations.
Dr. Harris: I love that
the sunlight coming through
looks like this part of the
landscape that Bellini painted
of the trees, these vertical trees,
and that yellow orange and
blue sunlight coming through.
(crosstalk) and all of the
things we consider very Venetian.
Dr. Zucker: It is an
incredibly ambitious painting.
It tells stories you would
never tire of looking at.
Dr. Harris: Then you can
imagine the Duke in his study,
looking at these gods, these Olympian gods
enjoying the pleasures of earthly life.
Dr. Zucker: A kind of justification
of the pleasures that he enjoys.
Dr. Harris: Mmhmm (affirmative).
(jazz music)