Venus and Adonis

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Venus and Adonis: Titian

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Work Overview: Venus and Adonis
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (Italian, about 1487 - 1576)
about 1555 - 1560
Oil on canvas
161.9 × 198.4 cm (63 3/4 × 78 1/8 in.)

A composition of Venus and Adonis by the Venetian Renaissance artist Titian has been painted a number of times, by Titian himself, by his studio assistants and by others. In all there are some thirty versions that may date from the 16th century, the nudity of Venus undoubtedly accounting for this popularity.[1] It is unclear which of the surviving versions, if any, is the original or prime version, and a matter of debate how much involvement Titian himself had with surviving versions. There is a precise date for only one version, that in the Prado in Madrid, which is documented in correspondence between Titian and Philip II of Spain in 1554. However, this appears to be a later repetition of a composition first painted a considerable time earlier, possibly as early as the 1520s.

The Prado version is set at dawn and shows the young Adonis pulling himself away from Venus, his lover. He carries a feathered spear or "dart", a weapon often used in hunting in the 16th century.[2] The leads of his three hounds are wound around his arm at right. Under the trees behind them at left Cupid lies asleep, with his bow and quiver of arrows hanging from a tree; this is not a time for love. High in the sky, a figure rides a chariot; this is either Venus from later in the story, or Apollo or Sol, representing the dawn. Venus sits on a rock covered with a rich tablecloth with gold braid edges and buttons (not a military jacket, as sometimes thought).[3] Adonis has a horn hanging from his belt; his dress is classical, taken from Roman sculptures.[4]

It is thought that the Roman poet Ovid was the main source, though other literary and visual sources have been suggested. In Book X of Ovid's Metamorphoses Adonis is a beautiful youth, a royal orphan, who spends his time hunting. Venus falls in love with him after one of Cupid's arrows hits her by mistake. They hunt together, but she avoids the fiercer animals, and warns him about them, citing the story of Atalanta. One day Adonis hunts alone and is gored by a wounded wild boar. Venus, in the sky in her chariot, hears his cries but cannot save him.[5] In some versions, the death of Adonis is shown in the distance to the right.[6] In Ovid, it is Venus who leaves first, and Adonis pulling himself away seems to be Titian's invention, for which some criticized him.[7]

"Lausanne version" (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
Two basic types of the composition were described by Harold Wethey, who called them the "Prado" and "Farnese" types; the Prado type is most common and is described above.[8] Alternative terms are the "three-dog" and "two-dog" types.[9] They are in most respects the same, but the Farnese type has a tighter crop on the subject and a wider shape, losing most of the sky. Adonis' raised hand is just below the picture edge, so the feathers on the spear are not seen, nor is the chariot in the sky, though the sun bursts through clouds in about the same place. There are only two hounds and no gold vessel on the ground at left. Cupid is brought closer to the main couple, and is now awake, holding a dove in his hands.

Although the best surviving examples of the Farnese or two-dog type appear to be at least as late as the Prado type, it may be that this was the original composition. Paul Joannides has suggested this, hypothesising that the original lost Farnese painting, or yet another version, may date back to the 1520s or even earlier. It is conceded that the tighter composition is more dramatic, and the "extended" left side of the Prado type has been described as "confusing" in all versions,[25] the "pose and position" of the new third hound at the rear "complicated and difficulty to decipher", and the whole "clumsy as an arrangement".[10]

Evidence of the possible earliest version is a miniature painting on parchment at Burleigh House by the English portrait miniaturist Peter Oliver of a lost version owned by Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel. It is dated 1631 and was painted for Charles I of England. In this composition, broadly of the Farnese type, Adonis does not hold a spear but has his arm around Venus. The original Howard painting seems to have been one destroyed in Vienna in 1945, and known only from black and white photographs. It was never catalogued as by Titian himself at Vienna, and was probably a studio copy of a lost original. Details of the forms and colours in these copies suggest Titian's style from the 1520s or late 1510s, and it is suggested that they record a first rendering of the subject from this period.[36]

The increased size may have been dictated by King Philip. We know that Philip's version was intended as a pair with his version of the Danaë, which was also a changed and extended version of a subject first painted for the Farnese (the version now in Naples). The height of the Naples Danaë is the same as that recorded for the lost Farnese Venus and Adonis.[37]

The pose of Venus had precedents in a well-known classical relief called il letto di Polyclito (the Bed of Polyclitus), where the female is Psyche (though in the 16th century thought to be Venus with Vulcan). She sits on a bed containing her sleeping partner, and twists round to see him, supporting herself on the bed with one arm, and lifting the covers with the other. Titian had various opportunities to see versions or copies of this very well-known composition.[38] It had already been used by Raphael's workshop in their frescos in the Villa Farnesina in Rome, for Hebe in the Feast of the Gods. Giulio Romano had used it in the Palazzo del Tè in Mantua, for a Baachus and Ariadne. Titian rarely comes so close to quoting another work.[7]

Like other painters at various periods, Titian was often receptive to requests for repetitions of earlier compositions of various types. A number of his mythological nudes were copied especially often.[39] There are at least five versions from him or his workshop of the Danaë, also falling into two main types, one first painted for the Farnese and the other for Philip II. Venus and Musician is another nude subject with several versions, in two main types, one with an organist and one with a lutenist. Venus is accompanied on her pillows either by a lapdog (of differing species) or a cupid.

The Spanish dramatist Lope de Vega (1562–1635) was "fascinated" by the painting, and mentions it in several plays, with a print of it featuring as a stage prop in one of them.[41]

Moscow version, said to be 1542–46
Venus and Adonis is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare that was published in 1593 and is probably Shakespeare's first publication. As noted by Erwin Panofsky, the poem certainly has similarities with Titian's painting, general ones in that Venus has difficulty attracting the very young Adonis, and in specific details. On his last morning she tries to physically restrain him from going hunting, but he pulls himself away, as in the Titian.[42]

There were print versions of the image, but Shakespeare mentions three times that Adonis wore a "bonnet" or hat,[43] which these do not have,[44] and from the surviving early versions, is only in the Rome, Dulwich and Alnwick ones. Supporters of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship argue that the real author of Shakespeare's works, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, saw the Rome version at Titian's studio in Venice on his travels in Italy in 1575–76, and based his poem on it. This is regarded by some of them as a weighty piece of evidence supporting "Oxfordian" authorship.

Titian was often inspired by tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses for the paintings he called poesie, poetry in paint. The goddess Venus has fallen in love with Adonis, a handsome hunter. She foresees that the hunt will be fatal for him, and tries in vain to restrain him from leaving with his hunting dogs. The mood of sensuality created by the beautiful view of Venus seen from the back (inspired by a Roman relief sculpture) barely distracts the viewer from the tragic end of the tale. Titian and his studio returned to the composition, varying it, in numerous paintings from the mid-1540s until the end of his life. This version was painted at the end of his career and its high quality shows that it was carried out by the artist himself.

The goddess Venus tries to restrain her lover Adonis from going off to the hunt. She clings to him, imploring him not to go, but Adonis looks down at her impassively. His dogs strain at their leashes, echoing his impatience, as detailed in the tragic love story found in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Cupid sleeps in the background, a symbol of Adonis's resistance to Venus's entreaties, since his ineffective arrows hang uselessly in a tree. The story ends tragically; during the hunt the mortal Adonis is fatally gored by a wild boar.

Titian's loose, energetic strokes of paint give the painting a sense of spontaneity and movement. In some areas, the artist even painted with his finger, as seen in Adonis's arm. The composition's dynamism springs from the torsion caused by Venus's awkward pose, which was inspired by an ancient sculptural relief. Titian used rich colors, shimmering highlights, and a lush landscape to create the painting's evocative, poignant mood.

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The first Poesie presented to Prince Philip were Danaë (1553, The Wellington Collection) and Venus and Adonis (1554), versions of other previous works, but endowed with all the prestige of the commissioning party. In turn, these works became models for numerous replicas.

Titian painted the first Venus and Adonis, which was lost but is known from the copies that were made of it, at the end of the 1520´s. After his experience in the Camerino d´Alabastro, which familiarised him with mythology, Titian felt secure enough to visualise a scene not described in Ovid or any other classical or contemporary source: the action of Adonis extracting himself from Venus´ embrace. Titian´s deviation from the canonical sources, which incurred the reproach of Raffaello Borghini in 1584, has prompted historians to seek alternative literary sources. Beroqui pointed to the Fábula de Adonis, Hipómenes y Atalanta by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, published in Venice in 1553, at the same time that Titian was working on the painting, but written during Mendoza´s years as the Emperor´s ambassador in Venice (1539-45), when he enjoyed close relations with Titian. More recently, Hosono Kiyo put forward as possible sources two works by Ludovico Dolce, the Favola d´Adone (Venice, 1545), in which Adonis rises from Venus with arrows in his hand, and Didone (Venice, 1547), in which Dido seeks to restrain Aeneas as Venus does Adonis. However, the dating of Titian´s invenzione to the 1520s permits us to consider a new option: that both Hurtado de Mendoza and Dolce were inspired by Titian. Dolce himself, in a passage in L´Aretino, admits that a work of pictorial art need not rely on a literary source and he goes further, saying that to contemplate a painting or a sculpture can inspire a writer. Although Dolce cites a watercolor supposedly by Raphael to illustrate his reasoning, he could as well have had in mind Titian´s Venus and Adonis.

Titian took up this theme again twenty years later in various compositions, one of which served as the point pf departure for the work belonging to the Museo del Prado. In this painting, produced in 1554, Titian presents the goddess with her back to us, demonstrating, in conjunction with the works Danaë (The Wellington Collection) and Venus and Adonis, that painting can represent different points of view, in a similar manner to sculpture.

The status of the Prado Venus and Adonis rests on its quality of execution, which is greatly superior to that of any other version, rather than on its composition, which follows earlier versions of the subject. This judgment is reinforced by technical evidence. The infrared reflectogram clearly shows that Titian departed from the Moscow painting (1542-1546) for Philip´s Venus and Adonis. The two human figures and the principal elements of the composition were laid in by tracings, and those tracings coincide precisely with the surface of the Moscow painting. As usual, Titian then included some minor changes and adjustments in Philip´s painting. The X-radiograph reveals a different position of Adonis´ hunting spear, but the most notable pentimenti are visible only on the surface, and mainly in the couple, particularly the profile of Venus and the torso of Adonis. This is because the surface of the Venus and Adonis was executed with very thin layers of paint, through which, as can be seen in parts of the sky, the preparation is visible, an effect noticeable in the contemporary Gloria at the Museo del Prado which Titian developed further in the later poesie, culminating in the Rape of Europa (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum).

As for the eroticism of the Venus and Adonis, it certainly seemed to contemporaries to be the most erotic of the poesie despite the fact that, unlike the Danaë, it does not depict a sexual act. Dolce compares the effect of contemplating it to that of observing the Cnidian Venus, and for the Spanish ambassador to Venice, it seemed an excellent painting but demasiado lascivo. A strong contributor to this effect were the buttocks of Venus, the part of the female anatomy that most excited the imagination of male contemporaries; but it is also likely that it was her scandalous behaviour, this being the only occasion in the series of poesie in which a woman takes the initiative in a movement that merges her desperate effort to restrain her lover with a seductive embrace.

Poesie is the name given to a series of works on mythological themes painted by Titian for Philip II between 1553 and 1562, comprising Danaë (The Wellington Collection, Apsley House), Venus and Adonis (Madrid, Museo del Prado), Perseus and Andromeda (London, The Wallace Collection), Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto (Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland-London, National Gallery) and The Rape of Europa (Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum). The project must have been agreed by Titian and Philip in 1551, when the painter was summoned to the Imperial court at Augsburg. The earliest recorded reference to the poesie comes in a letter written to Philip from Venice, on 23 March 1553, in which Titian informs the prince that he has dispatched a portrait of him interim che metto al ordine le Poesie, suggesting that he was by then working on a project known to both.

The poesie, therefore, should be regarded as the fruit of a common interest shared by Philip and Titian, rather than of the painter´s unchallenged will. Titian often gave his patrons works of art, but never ventured to take the initiative in a project on this large scale. Philip may well have asked Titian, in Augsburg, to produce a series of mythological paintings, leaving the painter free to choose both the themes and their treatment.

Although the poesie were intended to be hung together, in a camerino, as Titian notes in his letter of 10 September 1554, they were not painted for a specific space, as had been the case decades earlier with the Camerino d´Alabastro. This is because, until some time after his return to Spain in August 1559, Philip had no fixed residence. The fact that the series was not produced for an existing space may have had aesthetic repercussions. Titian was concerned about the lighting in the spaces where his works were to be hung, and the lack of specific references may account for the uniform lighting of the poesie, where the figures barely cast shadows. In other contemporary works such as Saint Nicholas of Bari, the Transfiguration or the Annunciation, painted for Venetian churches, the lighting is more carefully focused.

On their arrival in Spain, the poesie were probably placed in the Alcázar in Madrid, where they are recorded as hanging in the 17th century; this might account for their omission in the unfinished inventory of the Palace drawn up on the death of Philip II in 1598. Among the rooms not included were those located beside the gardens; these would be the most likely location of the poesie, to judge by contemporary views on the placing of mythological paintings both abroad and in Spain. A good example is Fontainebleau, a source of inspiration for Philip II, where Francis I of France hung his picture collection in the bains, a set of seven rooms beside the palace gardens.

We do not know when the poesie entered the Alcázar. The earliest reference to paintings in the building, dating from 1567, makes no mention of them, although the record is incomplete. They may well have been among the eight paintings by Titian that were rehoused in 1587 en los entresuelos de la galería nueva. After 1623 they were hung in the so called bóvedas or vaults of the new Summer Apartment (Cuarto Bajo de Verano), where they were seen in 1626 by Cassiano dal Pozzo. By then, Perseus and Andromeda had left the Royal Collection (it had already done so in the latter years of Philip II´s reign), and Cassiano reports that the remaining poesie were exhibited in three different areas of the vaults. Danaë and Venus and Adonis no longer hung together, thus departing from the pairing originally intended by Titian (Text drawn from Falomir, M.; Joannides, P.: "Dánae y Venus y Adonis, las primeras poesías de Tiziano para Felipe II", Boletín del Museo del Prado, 2014, pp. 7-51).

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The goddess Venus conceived a hopeless passion for the beautiful mortal Adonis, and here implores him to stay and love her, rather than go hunting. Adonis was later accidentally killed and anemones sprung from his blood. Ovid, 'Metamorphoses' (X, 665-740). Cupid is in the background.

This painting is a good workshop copy of the one finished for Philip II of Spain in 1554 (Madrid, Prado).

The painting was purchased from the Angerstein collection.

Between 1553 and 1554 Titian executed for the Habsburgs two classical mythological works of clearly erotic intent which he himself described as "poesie" (mythological fables). These are the Danaë with a Nurse and the Venus and Adonis, both now in the Prado, Madrid. The Venus and Adonis became the prototype for a whole series of replicas of this subject.

Venus, the goddess of love, falls in love with Adonis, a beautiful youth. Her love is not, however, enough to stop him pursuing his favourite pastime, hunting, which will lead to his undoing, for he is gored to death by a boar. There is an interesting letter from Titian to Philip II which deals with this painting. The artist makes a special point of mentioning that he was particularly interested in depicting the body from both sides.

In both paintings the scene of the union of the lovers is bathed in the warm light of sunset, where the diffuse softness of the colours holds sway. The female nudes reveal the continuing inspiration of Michelangelo's sculpture, such as the Dawn and Night from the Medici tombs in Florence. But what is entirely personal to Titian is the quality of the colour, which fragments into patches of dazzling luminosity - a perfect complement to the ecstatic sensuous abandon of the figures.

In its own day Venus and Adonis was considered one of Titian's most erotic works, especially in the compression of Venus' buttocks in her seated pose, but it also suggests the indulgent condescension of a younger man towards the frantic and overprotective reaction of an older woman.

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