Video: "Heavenly Love and Earthly Love" is a magnificent masterpiece by Titian, filled with many hidden symbols
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Titian considered one of the greatest painters of the Renaissance. The artist was not yet thirty years old when he was recognized as the best in Venice. One of his most famous paintings is "Heavenly Love and Earthly Love" (Amor Sacro y Amor Profano). It is fraught with many hidden symbols and signs, which art critics are still struggling to decipher.
Having painted the masterpiece, Titian left it untitled. In the Borghese Gallery in Rome, where the painting has been housed since the early 17th century, it had several titles: Beauty Embellished and Unadorned (1613), Three Types of Love (1650), Divine and Secular Women (1700), and finally, "Heavenly Love and Earthly Love" (1792).
Due to the fact that the author left his painting without a name, art critics have several versions of who is depicted on the canvas. According to one of them, the picture is an allegory for two types of love: vulgar (naked beauty) and heavenly (dressed woman). Both sit by the fountain, and Cupid is the mediator between them.
Most researchers are of the opinion that this painting was supposed to be a wedding gift for the secretary of the Council of the Ten Venetian Republic, Nicolo Aurelio and Laura Bagarotto. One of the indirect confirmations of this version is the coat of arms of Aurelio, which can be seen on the front wall of the sarcophagus.
In addition, the picture is filled with wedding symbols. One of the heroines is dressed in a white dress, her head is crowned with a myrtle wreath (a sign of love and fidelity). The girl is also wearing a belt and gloves (symbols also associated with the wedding). In the background, you can see rabbits, implying future offspring.
The background, which depicts women, is also fraught with symbols: a dark mountain road means loyalty and prudence, and a bright plain means bodily entertainment.
The well in the form of a sarcophagus does not quite fit into the picture. In addition, it depicts the ancient scene of the beating of Adonis by the god of war Mars. Researchers are inclined to believe that this is a kind of reference to the damaged reputation of the bride Laura Bagarotto. Her first husband took the side of the enemy during the war between the Venetian Republic and the Holy Roman Empire. He was sentenced to death as a traitor. The same fate befell Laura's father. So the plot on the sarcophagus could well be a reminder of her past.
Not only Titian filled his canvases with hidden symbolism. In a painting by another Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli "Spring" is also much more hidden than it seems.
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