WTI Magazine #2    2013 Oct,25

Author : Enrico De Iulis      Translation by: The Language Institute

In the church of the "Gesuati" in Venice, in the Cannaregio area, there is one of the most interesting paintings of the lagoon: The Martyrdom of St. Lorenzo by Tiziano Vecellio. It is a monumental work which has recently undergone complete restoration on the occasion of the Titian exhibit staged last year in Rome at the Quirinal Stables. The altarpiece was accomplished over the course of more than a decade that began with good intentions in 1547 and was not yet completed in 1557.

Commissioned by Lorenzo Massolo for the family chapel in the church of the Crociferis, it can now be admired in the first chapel to the left of the church of Santa Maria Assunta of the Jesuits, where the painting was moved following the suppression of the order of the Crociferis in 1656 and the subsequent transfer of assets to the Compagnia del Gesu. The greatness of this painting lies in its relationship with time; past, present and future.

The action that takes place in the past, more specifically in Imperial Rome in 258 AD, when the emperor Valerian, by edict puts to death all the bishops, presbyters, and deacons. The characterization of Ancient Rome is expertly rendered by the temple and by the pedestal of the statue on the left that provides a backdrop to the work, executed so perfectly thanks also to a journey that Titian had just made to Rome in 1546, images therefore still very vivid in his memory.

The dimension of the incident becomes mythical based on the very accurate hagiography of the life of Lorenzo, above all, of his death and in so doing, he gifts us one of the greatest nocturnal representations that Italian art has ever produced.

Night envelops Rome at the height of the summer heat. The action takes place on August 10th and the heat sticks to the muscles of the torturers who, in fact, are almost naked. It emerges from the torches that burn on the road illuminating the buildings and on the profiles of the people, and from the fire on the grate which the viewer sees in the foreground. For this reason, the framework does not provide for the presence of cool colors in the palette, only blacks, ocher, red and brown. The imperial atmosphere is perfectly realized between pomp, grandeur and the cruelty of the action.

The painting lives in the present of its making and has the sixteenth century style of perspective which the Venetian school rendered to its maximum. With the views from below, very angular, taking advantage of the stairs on either side of the scene to obtain movement and perspective. All solutions that Titian had learned in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini and had then enhanced and improved already in his first Sacred Conversations like the Pala Pesaro.

But, above all, it's in the future that the work will find greatest harmony, in the dark and warm atmosphere in which forty years later Caravaggio immerses his paintings, in the mellow and grainy painting which illuminates the flesh, makes the light flicker with white lead and intensifies the darkness, in the hurried gesture of Titian, who to make the features of the torturers, moves the brush quickly, outlines and contours, sketches while at the same time filling with pictorial material beards, glowing eyes, heavy features. This will be the manner of painting that will consecrate Titian in the Olympus of the greatest painters in history, a manner of painting that only three hundred years later the expressionists of the 1800's will become familiar with. In fact, the two executioners on the left might be of Touluse Lautrec, or of Kokoschka, while Velasquez and Goya will be able to draw from it freely from the large Titian collection present at the Prado in Madrid. It's a legacy that Titian leaves to future art, but which anticipates, thanks also to a very strong short-sightedness whose color technique rendered the images grainy and consumed the drawing underneath, engulfed it and rendered it fluid and compact at the same time. All filtered by a personal red tending toward crimson, which he mixed and to which he will give his name forever.