The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens "Art & Love in Renaissance Italy " |
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| Tuesday, 18 November 2008 01:46 |
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It includes exquisite examples of maiolica and jewelry given as gifts to couples, marriage portraits and paintings that extolled sensual love and fertility, such as the Metropolitan's own Venus and Cupid by the great Venetian artist Lorenzo Lotto, and some of the rarest and most significant pieces of Renaissance glassware, cassone panels, birth trays, and drawings and prints of amorous subjects.  Art and Love in Renaissance Italy is divided into three sections: Celebrating Betrothal, Marriage and Childbirth, which features splendid wedding gifts such as maiolica decorated with narratives or portraits, rare Venetian glassware, rings (including one of the earliest known diamond wedding rings) and other jewelry, delicate gilded boxes, and costly painted cassoni, or bridal chests; Profane Love, which focuses on erotic, at times salacious, imagery treated in drawings, prints, and other objects created by some of the most celebrated artists of the time, including Parmigianino and Giulio Romano; and From Cassone to Poesia: Paintings of Love and Marriage, which shifts to nuptial portraits and paintings on themes of love that decorated bedchambers and private quarters. Here the poetic genius of Renaissance artists is on display with some of the most beguiling and sensual works by Botticelli, Titian, Lorenzo Lotto, and their contemporaries that were produced for marriages and as gifts for lovers. It was the very fluidity of the marriage vows that made the traditional rituals and their public manifestations so important for weddings sanctioned by society. This was true at all social levels but was especially vital for the wealthy. Indeed, public wedding ceremonies and the material objects generated for them provided the physical demonstration of the marriage's legitimacy. The gifts and paraphernalia that formed the cornerstones of wedding celebrations were discussed at length and in great specificity in the abundant contemporary texts that recorded particular weddings and inventoried couples' belongings, as well as in more generalized writings on marriage.  One example illustrates the problems of interpretation we face. Late in his career, Titian painted five related works showing Venus reclining in bed accompanied by a male musician—sometimes an organist and sometimes a lute player—who gazes at her intently. Not only the kind of musician but other details vary as well: Cupid comes and goes, and the landscape backgrounds differ significantly. Technical examination has shown that the principal figure of Venus was in most cases transferred mechanically from canvas to canvas through use of a cartoon and that Titian was personally involved in the production of each work to varying degrees. We can assume, therefore, that at least some of these paintings were produced for the open market, rather than invented for a specific client, and that their imagery evolved as a result of the popularity of the composition. Titian's paintings seem to embody the multiplicity of interpretations found in contemporary poetry and prose and therefore bring these writings alive in visual terms.The primary functions of the institution of marriage centered on the family and society, and love rarely entered into the equation. Yet the subjects of love, beauty, and attraction mesmerized Renaissance men and women. They were discussed—even dissected—endlessly in poems, dialogues, and treatises from perspectives ranging from the most base to the most elevated. The pleasures and pain of love could be weighed against each other, even within a single poem. The same dichotomy was rehearsed in prose. The great Renaissance paintings on the themes of love and marriage owe their rich complexity, and often ambiguity, of meaning to the coexistence of this broad range of contemporary thought on the subject. Love can bring pleasure or pain; beauty can inspire lascivious thoughts or bring us closer to the divine; marriage makes it impossible to live a spiritual life or provides us with an ideal companion who brings us harmony. Is the woman a courtesan or a wife? Was these works painted to commemorate a marriage or as an erotic pinup? Visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art at : www.metmuseum.org/ |
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