Titian, "Caesar's Denarius": plot, description

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In 1516, Titian arrived at the Duke d'Este in Ferrara, where he completed a painting depicting Christ with a coin. It is known under the name "Caesar's denarius". It depicts a well-known passage from the Gospel, in which Christ uttered his famous saying: “Give what is Caesar to Caesar, and what is God’s to God.”

History of writing

The depicted Caesar's coin is not only the basis of the composition, but also explained the purpose of this picture: Titian wrote "Caesar's Denarius" to decorate a cabinet in the office of Duke Alfonso I d'Este (1476–1534), where his collection of ancient coins was kept.

The painting was painted in oil on a wooden panel. While Titian produced a number of similar works in the second decade of the sixteenth century, images of a similar format with half-length figures were almost always executed on canvas. However, for a number of practical reasons, the works that became an addition to or part of the furniture, as a rule, were written on wood. Thus, it can be assumed that from the very beginning the image should have beenbe part of the cabinet interior.

Treatment of the plot

Many scholars see Titian's Denarius Caesar as a demonstration of the tension between ecclesiastical and civil jurisdictions that supposedly worried Duke Alfonso at the time of the painting's creation. The emphasis of scholars on the alleged political and propaganda function of this work appeared already in the post-Reformation period, although such a view was not relevant in the cultural environment during the life of the artist.

Researchers of post-Reformation Renaissance art history see Matthew 22 as a proclamation of fiscal policy and the division of power between church and state.

Before the Reformation, this text was seen as an appeal not to something external, but rather to something internal: the story told saw the soul of the reader as a kind of form of currency, invariably marked by the image and likeness of God.

The pre-modern reading of this gospel passage shifts from the political to the spiritual. Titian's painting is already seen in the light of this standard of biblical text interpretation. The emergence of this way of thinking demonstrated a redistribution of the exegetical tradition of interpreting chapter 22 of Matthew, offering a radical new understanding of the interaction with the objects that the painting masks. The picture indicates the connection between the spiritual and the material in human nature, while the coin here acts as a diverse object.

Features

Titian's painting "Denarius of Caesar" bears the signature TICIANVS F. along the collar of the white camise (shirt) worn by the Pharisee, and its status as an autograph has never been questioned. The composition is one of the artist's best: Vasari, an Italian painter and writer who became the founder of art history, described the head of Christ as amazing and grandiose. His beauty is enhanced by the contrast of his marbled complexion with the weathered skin of a Pharisee. The physiognomic features that distinguish Christ may have come from a tradition that began with an emerald medallion bearing his image, which was given to Pope Alexander VI. This image was often found in print publications, and Titian undoubtedly knew him.

Composition analysis

When describing Titian's Denarius Caesar, attention is drawn to the extreme compression of the space of the painted scene. It was used by the artist to achieve maximum physical intimacy. In the picture, the Pharisee is approaching Christ from behind his left shoulder. This is a strange compositional decision. Together with the close-up format, the interaction of the two characters gives the impression of a truncated composition: a person looking at her can imagine that Jesus was talking to other Pharisees outside the left edge of the composition.

At the request of Jesus, a bearded man in white, who was previously excluded from the conversation and was behind Christ, attracts attention and offers a handful of coins. So the shouldersthe son of god is oriented towards the other Pharisees outside the frame, while his head is tilted to the right of the viewer, creating the effect of movement. The figure of Jesus serves as a link in the composition, filling the gap between the lone Pharisee, depicted to the left of his shoulder, and the many others whose presence is only implied.

In the correct forms of the heads, one can feel the author's closeness to the manner in which his teacher Giovanni Bellini wrote. In the painting by Titian Vecellio "Caesar's Denarius" everything is subject to concentration, the intensity of the form, depicting the story of the Pharisee who tried to provoke Christ. When asked by the Pharisee whether it was right for the emperor to pay taxes or not, Jesus asked to see the coin and, pointing to the chased portrait of the emperor on one side and the image of God on the other, said: “Give Caesar what is Caesar’s and God’s.” Titian reduced the whole plot to a confrontation between two heads and two hands, two characters that have nothing in common.

The uniqueness of the plot

Despite the fact that this story occurs in several gospels, it is virtually absent from the tradition of Christian imagery, except for a few selected handwritten illustrations. The painting by Titian is generally considered to be the first independent depiction relating to the twenty-second chapter of Matthew in Renaissance art. Indeed, the rarity of the display subject has led to some confusion. Vasari, describing the picture, calls it "Christ with a coin." Early modern Spanish sources usedLatin name Numisma Census (tax money).

Giorgio Vasari considered this painting to be the most excellent ever painted by Titian.