Titian's Poesie (six paintings)

choi

Ariella Budick, Noble, Yet Savage; Titian | Power, desire, violence and death combine in the artist's mythological masterpieces; Boston's Gardner Museum attempts an answer to the questions they raise. Financial Times, Aug 28, 2021, at page 11 of Saturday's Art section)
https://www.ft.com/content/b50bd88e-ac34-4202-905d-f28bb67e94bd
(exhibition review on Titian; Women, myth & power. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Aug 12. 2021 - Jan 2, 2022)

excerpt in the window of print: The Paintings became a touchstone for art history, and symbolised the New World's cultural ascendancy

Note:
(a)
(i) I do not supply a link to the exhibition, which is not helpful.
(ii) "The museum was built in 1898–1901 by Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924)."  en.wikipedia.org for "Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum."

(b) The "main" painting that came with the text is one whose caption reads, "Danaë (1551-1553," though the text did not mention it (painting) at all (perhaps because this painting involved no violence).  
(i) Danaë
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danaë

The diaeresis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)
atop the vowel e (in Danaë) signifies that e is pronounced.
(ii) The Furies, Brooklyn Museum, undated
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/e ... ge_floor/the_furies
("The children of Gaea and Uranus [Greek God of sky], they were usually characterized as three sisters: Alecto ('unceasing'), Tisiphone ('avenging murder'), and Megaera ('grudging'). Their counterparts in Greek mythology are the Erinyes")
(A) Brooklyn Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Museum
(section 2 Funding)
is private but receives public funds.
(B) Gaia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia
(also spelled Gaea [which is pronounced differently]’ "She is the mother of Uranus (the sky), from whose sexual union [yes, mother and son] she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods)" )
(C) English dictionary:
* Alecto (proper noun; from Ancient Greek Alēktṓ, literally "Unceasing (Anger)")
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Alecto
* Tisiphone (proper name; [Ancient] Greek [Tisiphónē], literally "the avenger of blood")
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/tisiphone
(pronunciation)
* Megaera (from Ancient Greek verb megaírō to grudge, envy: Wiktionary)
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/megaera
(pronunciation)
* Erinys (proper name; plural: Erinyes; from Ancient Greek Erīnúes, literally "Avengers")
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Erinys
(D) painting caption: "William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Orestes Pursued by the Furies, 1862. Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia"
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William-Adolphe_Bouguereau
(1825-1905; French; The painting "Nymphs and Satyr, 1873" is famous)
(E) Orestes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orestes
(section 2 Greek literature, section 2.1 Homer; section 4 Greek drama, section 3.2 Euripides)
(iii) Danaë (Titian series)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danaë_(Titian_series)
("became pregnant by Zeus (in Roman mythology Jupiter)" )


(c) "Titian's 'The Rape of Europa' * * * The muscular animal is an avatar of the god Jupiter [wrong; should be Zeus], who posed as a beautiful bovine, insinuated himself into the herd and approached the comely figure on the shore. She responded to his charm, even weaving a crown of flowers to set above his ears. Having won her trust, the king of gods sprang into the sea, quarry on his back.  That exquisite, disturbing painting is a diadem in the collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner [Stewart is her maiden name] Museum in Boston and the centrepiece of Titian: Women, Myth and Power, an explosive, exhilarating grouping of just six pictures that Titian called his Poesie. Philip II commissioned them in 1550-51, several years before he became king of Spain. It took Titian a decade to deliver them, one by one, after which they were gradually dispersed."
(i) Europa (consort of Zeus)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(consort_of_Zeus)   
(section 3 Mythology)
(ii)
(A) "there is no significant difference between tiara and diadem. Both these words can be used interchangeably.": from the Web
(B) English dictionary:
* diadem (n; "History and Etymology for diadem": from Ancient Greek diádēma "headband, band wrapped around the headdress by Persian monarchs" * * * from dia- + déō, deîn to bind, tie)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diadem
(pronunciation)
* poesy (n; etymology; plural poesies): "a poem or body of poems"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poesies
(pronunciation)
(C) Italian-English dictionary:
* poesia (noun feminine; plural poesie): "poetry; poem"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poesia

Of course, Titian was speaking Italian, bit English.

(d) "Based on classical myths as told by Roman poet Ovid, the Poesie pivot on episodes of almost unbearable drama. Power, desire, violence and death come together in feathery passages of vaporous air. In one canvas, Perseus, scimitar extended, plunges from the sky directly into the jaws of a dragon. He is on a double conquest: killing the monster means marrying Andromeda, who is chained on the shore, delectably nude, fixed into a balletic pose.  In another, Venus, seen from behind, grips Adonis in a post-coital frenzy of fear as he departs on a fatal hunting trip. Her dimpled buttocks drew lecherous plaudits practically before the pigment had set: one Renaissance critic declared that there can be “no one so cooled by age or so tough of temperament, that on seeing Venus wouldn’t feel his body heating up and his blood stirring in his veins”.
(i) Ovid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovid
(ii) scimitar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar
(iii) Andromeda (mythology)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_(mythology)
(two paintings whose captions are: "Andromède by Gustave Doré, 1869" (private collection) and "Titian, Perseus and Andromeda, 1554-1556" (Wallace Collection) )
(A) Gustave Doré
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustave_Doré
(B) Wallace Collection
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Collection
(a [public] museum in London)

Quote:

"It was established in 1897 from the private collection mainly created by Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford (1800–1870), who left both it and the house to his illegitimate son Sir Richard Wallace (1818–1890) [after whom the Collection was named] whose widow Julie Amelie Charlotte Castelnau bequeathed the entire collection to the nation. * * * The United Kingdom is particularly rich in the works of the ancien régime, purchased by wealthy families during the revolutionary sales, held in France after the end of the French Revolution. The triumvirate of The Wallace Collection, Waddesdon Manor and the Royal Collection, all three located in the United Kingdom, forms arguably the largest, most important and extant collection of French 18th-century decorative arts in the world, rivalled only by the triumvirate of the Musée du Louvre, Château de Versailles and Mobilier National in France. The Wallace Collection is a non-departmental public body

(C) Hertford
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertford   
(note pronunciation; section 1 Toponymy)
(iv) Venus and Adonis (Titian)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_and_Adonis_(Titian)


(e) " 'Diana and Callisto' depicts another shocking moment, when the chaste goddess of the hunt discovers that one of her servants is pregnant by the priapic king of the gods. Using his tried-and-true dating strategy, Jupiter has shape-shifted again, this time into Diana herself. After reverting to his male body, he rapes Callisto, leaving her secretly experienced — and expectant — amid a platoon of avowed virgins.  Titian fixes on that tempest of shame. During a communal bath, three self-righteous maidens, who have noticed Callisto blushing, fling her to the ground and tear off her robe, baring a swelling belly. Bloodshot eyes and bloated cheeks betray her humiliation."
(i) Diana is Roman Goddess whose Greek counterpart is Artemis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis
(ii) Diana and Callisto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_and_Callisto
(The painting was jointly purchased by the National Gallery and the Scottish National Gallery for £45 million in March 2012 [from Francis Egerton, 7th Duke of Sutherland])
(A) Sutherland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherland
(B) Callisto (mythology)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callisto_(mythology)

(f)
(i) There is no need to read the rest (about 50%)  of the FT review, which said violence against women is no good. We all know fantasy from reality.
(ii)
(A) Titian’s 'Poesie;' The Commission; The most ambitious and magnificent works of his career. National Gallery, undated
https://www.nationalgallery.org. ... esie-the-commission

("A seventh painting, The 'Death of Actaeon,' was intended as part of the cycle but a great part of it was painted later and it was never delivered to Philip. Here Titian, painting in his mid-80s, paints Actaeon, transformed into a stag by Diana, being torn to death by his own hounds")
(B) Actaeon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actaeon