18-10-2016 Tiziano | Indagini sulla pittura -2- Antonio Paolucci

As part of the inaugural celebrations for the academic year organized by the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca on the Feast of Saint Luke, starting at 5:30 pm, the book "Tiziano. Investigations into Painting" by Andrea Donati (Rome-Foligno, Etgraphiae Editore, 2015) will be presented. Introduced by Francesco Moschini and attended by the author, speakers include Ileana Chiappini di Sorio, Paul Joannides, and Antonio Paolucci. How did Titian paint? What creative force inspired his brush? Why did he return to the same subject over and over again? What is the difference between a replica and a copy? Anyone approaching Titian's painting and wanting to discover its meaning must contend with a multitude of variations, which demand explanation. Some of these prove to be authentic works by Titian and help us understand his artistic journey. Examining the master's work in his Venetian workshop in Biri Grande requires first and foremost a critical exercise in real life. Diagnostic, historical, and documentary investigations complete the framework within which the research unfolds. Hermeneutics demonstrates that Titian could change his inventions depending on the circumstances. The exhibition "Discovering Titian" attempts to answer these essential questions, starting with an extraordinary painting: the Deposition of Jesus Christ at the Sepulchre. Titian first painted a Deposition around 1526-1527, and that painting is now in the Louvre. Then, in 1557, he returned to the same figurative theme, painting a Deposition for Philip II, but completely changing the composition and its meaning. That painting, shipped to Brussels via the Tyrol, was lost along the way and never reached its destination. Thus, the following year, Titian repainted the Deposition, including his self-portrait as Nicodemus, and sent it to the King of Spain via Genoa. That painting is now in the Prado. Several years later, in 1572, the king's secretary asked Titian to paint the Deposition again, and Titian obliged, executing a replica of the painting previously sent to Philip II, but without including his self-portrait. This painting is also now in the Prado. In those same years, Titian used the same model for a variant of the Deposition, modifying the layout of the canvas and repositioning some of the figures. That painting, perhaps originally intended for the tomb in the Church of the Frari, remained unfinished in Titian's studio in Venice at the time of his death in 1576. Subsequently purchased by Cardinal Borromeo, it is now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan. Meanwhile, in 1574, Jeronimo Sánchez Coello, younger brother of Philip II's court painter, was sent by the king to Titian's studio, where he remained for some time. When he returned to Spain, he brought with him some paintings he had purchased by Titian, including a Deposition. At the end of the sixteenth century, Sánchez Coello's will documents that the painting was in the possession of a collector in Seville. The presence of a Deposition by Titian in Seville, specifically in the collection of the treasurer of the East India Company, is confirmed by the Spanish painter Luis Tristan. And it was from the port of Seville, a century later, that a Deposition by Titian, owned by the couple Manuel de la Riva-Agüero and Francesca Basso della Rovere, departed for America. The couple belonged to two illustrious Italian-Spanish families, and their descendants gave birth to the first president of the Republic of Peru. The Deposition of La Riva-Agüero, passed down through the generations to the last heirs, remained unknown to art historians for a long time until it was the subject of an in-depth study, which was included in the volume of essays by Andrea Donati, Tiziano. Indagini sulla pittura (Rome-Foligno, Etgraphiae editore, 2015).