Mantegna — Death of the Virgin (El Tránsito de la Virgen)

A pioneer of Renaissance 3-D, Andrea Mantegna (pron: mahn-TAYN-yah) creates a spacious setting, then peoples it with sculptural figures.

The dying mother of Christ is surrounded by statue-like apostles with plates on their heads and pots in their hands. The architectural setting is heroic and spacious. Follow the lines in the floor tiles and side columns. They converge toward the window, then seem to continue on to the far horizon in the lines of the bridge. This creates a subconscious feeling of almost infinite spaciousness, bringing a serenity to an otherwise tragic death scene. You can imagine Mary’s soul leaving her body and floating easily out the window, disappearing into the infinite distance.

* Turn around to see some large Raphael canvases (on opposite wall). Let them overwhelm you, then look left at the partition and refocus your eyes on Raphael’s tiny Holy Family with a Lamb. The sheer difference in size and scope of these works gives you a sense of the artist’s vision.

Raphael — Holy Family with a Lamb (Sagrada Familia del Cordero)

Raphael reproduced reality perfectly on a canvas, but also gave it harmony, geometry, and heroism that made it somehow more real than reality. Combining idealized beauty with down to-earth realism, he was the ultimate Renaissance painter.

Raphael (pron: roff-eye-ELL) was only 21 when he painted this. He learned Leonardo da Vinci’s technique of sfumato, spreading a kind of hazy glow around the figures (this is the technique that gives the Mona Lisa her vague, mysterious smile). He also borrowed a Leonardo trademark technique — the three figures form a pyramid, with Joseph’s head at the peak.

* Within the same room (#49), find the following paintings.

Raphael — Portrait of a Cardinal (El Cardenal)

Compare the idealized beauty of Holy Family with the stark realism of this gritty portrait of a no-nonsense man. Raphael captures not just his face, but his personality. He’s cold, intelligent, detached, and somewhat cynical, the type of man who could become a cardinal at such a young age in the Renaissance Vatican’s priest-eat-priest jungle of holy ambition.
Raphael — Christ Falls on the Way to Calvary (Caída en el Camino del Calvario)

Raphael puts it all together — the idealized grace of the Holy Family and the realism of Portrait of a Cardinal. Look at the detail on the muscular legs of the guy in yellow (at left) and the arms of Simon, who has come to help Jesus carry his cross. Then contrast that with the idealized beauty of the mourning women. When this painting was bought in 1661, it was the costliest in existence.

Raphael splits the canvas into two contrasting halves. Below the slanting line made by the crossbar is a scene of swirling passion — the sorrow of Christ and the women, the tangle of crowded bodies. Above it is open space and indifference — the bored soldiers and onlookers and the bleak hill in the background where Jesus is headed to be crucified.

* On the opposite wall (still in Room 49), look for…

Correggio — Don’t Touch Me (Noli Me Tangere)

Raphael could paint idealized beauty, but this pushes sweetness to diabetic levels.

It’s Easter morning and Jesus has just come back to life. One of his followers, Mary Magdalene, runs into him in the garden near the tomb. She’s amazed and excited and reaches toward him. “Don’t touch me!” (Noli me tangere) says Jesus (though he spoke neither English nor Latin).

The colors accentuate the emotion of the scene. Against the blue-green landscape, Mary Magdalene — the ex-prostitute in a fiery yellow dress and yellow hair — is hot to touch the cool Christ with his blue cloak and pale, radiant skin. The composition also accentuates the action. The painting’s energy runs in a diagonal line up the rippling Mary, through Christ and his upstretched arm to heaven, where he will soon go.

* Head straight to the next long gallery (Room 75). Midway down the gallery, turn left into Room 61b.

Titian (c. 1490-1576)

Look around. What do you see? Flesh. Naked bodies in various poses; bright, lush, colorful scenes. Many scenes have “pagan” themes, but even the religious works are racier than anything we saw from the Florentine and Roman Renaissance.

Venice in 1500 was the richest city in Europe, the middleman in the lucrative trade between Europe and the Orient. Wealthy, cosmopolitan, and free, Venetians loved life’s finer things — rich silks, beautiful people, jewels, banquets, music, wine, and impressive buildings — and Venetian painters enjoyed painting them in bright colors.

The chief Venetian was Titian (they rhyme). Titian (Tiziano in Spain) was possibly the most famous painter of his day — more famous than Raphael, Leonardo, and even Michelangelo. His reputation reached Spain, and he became the favorite portraitist for two kings, who bought many of his works.
Titian — Danae

In Greek mythology, Zeus, the king of the gods, was always zooming to earth in the form of some creature or other to fool around with mortal women. Here, he descends as a shower of gold to consort with the willing Danae. You can almost see the human form of Zeus within the cloud. Danae is helpless with rapture, opening her legs to receive him, while her servant tries to catch the heavenly spurt with a towel.

Danae’s rich, luminous flesh on the left of the canvas is set off by the dark servant at right and the threatening sky above. The white sheets beneath her make her glow even more. This is more than a classic nude — it’s a Renaissance Miss August. How could Spain’s ultra-conservative Catholic kings have tolerated such a downright pagan and erotic painting?
Titian — Venus with the Organ Player (Venus recreándose en la Música)

A musician turns around to leer at a naked woman while keeping both hands at work on his organ. This aroused King Phillip II’s interest. (For more on the king, see below.) The message must have appealed to him — the conflict between sacred, artistic pursuits as symbolized by music, and worldly, sensual pursuits as embodied in the naked lady.

Titian emphasized these two opposites with color: “cool” colors on the left, hot crimson and flesh on the right. The center of the painting is where these two color schemes meet, so even though the figures lean and the poplar trees in the background are off-center, the painting is balanced and harmonious in the Renaissance tradition.

A century after Phillip’s reign, his beloved nudes were taken down from the Escorial and Royal Palace and hidden away as unfit to be seen. For more than a century these great Titians were banned.

* Continue into Room 61…

Titian — Phillip II (Felipe II)

This is the king who bought Titian’s sexy Danae and many other paintings of nudes. Phillip had a reputation as a repressed prude — pale, suspicious, lonely, a cold fish; the sort of man who would build the severe and tomb-like Escorial Palace. Freud would have had a field day with such a complex man who could be so sternly religious and yet have such sensual tastes. Here, he is looking as pious and ascetic as a man can while wearing an outfit with a bulging codpiece.
Titian — Emperor Charles V on Horseback (El Emperador Carlos V en la Batalla de Muhlberg)

Are you glad to be here? If so, then tip your book to that guy on horseback, the father of the Prado’s collection.

In the 1500s, Charles was the most powerful man in the world. He was not merely King Charles of Spain, but Holy Roman Emperor with possessions stretching from Spain to Austria, from Holland to Italy, from South America to Burgundy. He was defender of the Catholic Church against infidel Turks, French kings, and in this picture, rebellious Protestants.

Titian shows him in the classic equestrian pose of a Roman conqueror. His power is accentuated by his control over his rearing horse and the lance with its optimistic tilt. Once Charles met Titian and saw what he could do, he never wanted anyone else to paint him. And the story goes that, while sitting for a portrait one day, this greatest ruler in the world actually stooped over to pick up a brush Titian dropped.

* El Greco’s art is nearby in Room 60a and 61a.