Exhibition of Titian at the Pushkin Museum: a brief overview

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

This summer, at the end of June, an exhibition of Titian opened in the Pushkin Museum. Its work was planned to be completed at the end of September, but due to the extreme excitement of visitors and the giant queues that began to accumulate at the entrance, they decided to extend it until early October. What exactly did art historians show to Muscovites and guests of the city? In total, eleven paintings by one of the most amazing and mysterious painters of the Renaissance were exhibited.

But each of them is unique not only because it belongs to the brush of Titian. These paintings were brought from different cities of Italy before they ended up in the Pushkin Museum. An exhibition like this has never been seen before.

More than 400,000 people saw paintings in Moscow, for which one would have to go around the museums of almost all of Italy. Almost all of these works are in smalltowns - one at a time. Before appearing in Moscow, these paintings were shown in Rome in the famous Quirinal Palace. However, statistics show that they aroused less interest than in Russia. The Titian exhibition at the Pushkin Museum opens with the Madonna and Child from the Bergamo Museum, created in 1507. This is one of the earliest works of the painter. It is said that the image of the Virgin with the divine child (also called by the name of Count Lochis) was painted by him at the age of eighteen, when he was still under the influence of the Giorgione style.

The mysterious painting "The Baptism of Christ" is also a landmark for the artist. The Titian exhibition at the Pushkin Museum allows the viewer to see a strange man in black robes who is watching the main stage. On his hand are two wedding rings, one of which is a sign of his secret vows. Perhaps this is the customer of the canvas. Be that as it may, this work already has all the features characteristic of Titian, including the so-called “sfumato” effect.

You can admire the image of a young, but already tempted in passion girl, combining innocence and sensuality, in the painting "Flora". Already here we see a typical "Titian" woman - strange and attractive.

Such images became muses for artists of the next generations, such as Rembrandt. The Titian exhibition at the Pushkin Museum opens up another similar face for us. "Beauty" - in this later picture wewe see the same golden-haired type of an unknown lady in rich blue clothes. In addition, the exhibition presents three more portraits, in which the artist's gift was embodied in a unique way to convey the structure of the fabric, facial features and at the same time - deep psychologism.

Because the artist loved the themes that were fashionable in the Renaissance, connected with the mythology of antiquity, the Titian exhibition in Moscow presented the audience with two canvases of this kind - “Danae” and “Venus, which blindfolds Cupid”. On the first theme, the artist wrote several variations, one of which is in the Hermitage. The painting exhibited in Moscow was commissioned by the Spanish king. The second picture - playful and at the same time peaceful, painted with an inimitable sense of color and light in large strokes - is considered one of the pinnacles of the artist's work. And, finally, the Titian exhibition in Moscow ends with two works of religious themes - the Annunciation and the Crucifixion. The last work is an altar piece made for the Dominican church in Ancona. The tragic extravaganza of suffering and hope is conveyed here by the play of color, shadow and light. And the connection of times is expressed in the figure of St. Dominic, who fell to the crucifix. Previously, the picture was not exhibited outside of Italy.