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Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) Italian, Venetian, 1488/90-1576, Giorgio Cornaro with a Falcon,1537, oil on canvas Museum Purchase, 1942; dedicated in honor of Robert H. Ahmanson of Omaha, philanthropist, patron of the arts and arts education

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, ca. 1487-1576) is considered one of the most important figures of Venetian art. Born in the Dolomite mountains north of Venice, he moved to the city to apprentice as an artist at about age thirteen. He studied most notably with the Bellini family and worked either under or with his slightly elder contemporary, Giorgione. By 1516 he had painted a high altarpiece of the Assumption of the Virgin for the Venetian church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari and was named the official painter to the Venetian Republic. Titian worked for many of the courts of Italy, in particular the Este family in Ferrara and Mantua, the Gonzagas in Mantua, and the court of Urbino. For these patrons he painted some of the most compelling, transformative, and influential works of the history of art, creating new ways of presenting traditional compositions using color, light, shadow, and inventive techniques. At his maturity he worked for Emperor Charles V of Spain and his son, Philip II. Titian was one of the most sought-after artists in the world.

This portrait exemplifies Titian's prodigious talents in psychological characterization, lively composition, and rich painterly colorism. Earlier Venetian Renaissance portraitists were influenced by the Florentine Leonardo da Vinci and the German Albrecht Dürer and also borrowed techniques from Netherlandish artists, such as brighter colors and more psychologically charged poses. Titian moved even beyond this, imbuing his representations with a forcefulness that captured the personality of the sitter. Poses are given a heightened tension as heads turn away from the direction of the body, expressions are natural and sympathetic, and colors are given a richness and saturation that approximated the lushness of Venetian high style. Occasionally his portraits were creations of pure form which connect with each other by color and texture, as in his portrait of Giorgio Cornaro where, in an over-all dark tonality, key elements are picked out by light, such as the bird, the harness, the hand, and the face.

Giorgio Cornaro (1517-1571) was a member of one of the most important families in Venice. Descended from a Doge (the title given to the elected ruler of Venice) he was admitted to the Venetian Grand Council at age twenty, about the time this portrait was painted. The family had widespread land holdings and enterprises and was one of the most important breeders of falcons in Europe, hence his portrayal here holding a peregrine. Although this portrait is one of Titian's most sensitive, Cornaro's significance as a Venetian public figure came afterward. His life was one of artistic patronage and military service. In 1551 he commissioned one of the greatest of villas by the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, the Villa Corner (Cornaro in Venetian dialect). He captained war galleys for the Venetian navy and met his fate against the Turks in the 1571 Battle of Lepanto.

Titian's magnificent portrait of Giorgio Cornaro with a falcon has been in the permanent collection of Joslyn Art Museum since 1942. A cherished work of art in the region, it has afforded many the privilege of enjoying the skill and mastery of one of the world's most important artists as well as a glimpse into the life of a sixteenth-century nobleman.

In 2006 the painting was accepted into the J. Paul Getty Museum's Conservation Partnerships program in Los Angeles. The Getty's treatment has transformed the portrait. Before conservation, the painting was considered a tired example of the work of a great artist; the merits of Titian's genius were hidden primarily behind a muddy varnish. With Titian's colors, his profound use of lights and shades, and his great sensitivity to the character of his sitter again revealed, this portrait of Giorgio Cornaro takes its place as one of the finest works of the Italian Renaissance in an American collection.

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See It Now

• William Penhallow Henderson

  William Penhallow Henderson (American, 1877-1943), Koshare, San Felipe,1917-19, oil on canvas, lent by The Anschutz Collection. Image courtesy of The Anschutz Collection; photographer: William J. O'Connor

  New on view is the marvelous painting Koshare, San Felipe (1917-19) by Santa Fe artist William Penhallow Henderson (1877-1943), examples of whose work are rarely seen in our region. Henderson moved to New Mexico in 1916 and became one of the most important members of the Santa Fe art colony. In Koshare, San Felipe, the artist captures the color and rhythm of an Indian Corn Dance at San Felipe Pueblo. The focus of the painting is a koshare, or ceremonial clown, whose body and face are covered with white clay. With arms raised, he appears to emulate the falling rain, a gesture meant to entice the rain gods. Henderson's intense colors and stylized composition are reminiscent of Gauguin's Tahitian scenes. Both artists focused on the exoticism of cultures that were foreign to them, but Henderson, who was born in Massachusetts, had only to travel to the American Southwest to find inspiration.

   

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Out and About

The following works in Joslyn's collection are currently on loan to other museums for special exhibitions.

The Card Trick by John George Brown is on loan to the exhibition American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from October 12, 2009, through January 24, 2010, and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from February 28 through May 23, 2010.
Joslyn's terra cotta Black-Figure Ovoid Neck-Amphora, ca. 570 BCE, attributed to the Omaha Painter (Greek; Attic or Euboean) is on view at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, through January 3, 2010, in Heroes: Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece, an international loan exhibition organized by that museum. The exhibition will travel to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, January 29 - April 25, 2010; to the San Diego Museum of Art, May 22 - September 5; and to the Onassis Cultural Center, New York, October 5, 2010 - January 3, 2011.

All images contained on these pages are the property of Joslyn Art Museum and may not be reproduced without written permission. Click here for Rights and Reproductions Information. All text is copyrighted, some copyrighted in the 1994 publication of Fifty Favorites from Joslyn Art Museum (ISBN 0-936364-24-6).