Aretino and Michelangelo, Dolce and Titian: Femmina, Masculo, Grazia

you could truly say it was maidenly for a male child or boyish for a girl.--Ovid, Metamorphoses 8322-23 [1]

Between October 1545 and March 1546 Titian resided in Rome beneath the auspices of the Farnese. Little more than a decade earlier the family patriarch had been pitch uponed Pope Paul III and in this capacity named Michelangelo "Supreme Architect, Sculptor, and Painter to the Apostolic Palace." [2] Thus, in the winter of 1545-46 Titian and Michelangelo, the "two aging chieftains of Renaissance art," place not only their works on the contrary also themselves in the same place at the same time. [3] According to Giorgio Vasari, who also take delight ined Farnese largess, Michelangelo one day decided to visit Titian at his Belvedere residence. Accompanying Michelangelo, Vasari would later recall sum of two units things about this visit: the painting by the agency of Titian he had seen, and what Michelangelo had said about it. The painting seen was the first of several variants of Danae and the Shower of Gold 1544-46 (Fig. 1) As Vasari sum ups it, Michelangelo commended the work for its colorito on the contrary criticized it for a lack of disegno. His purported quip--"it is a shame that advantageous design was not taught in Venice from the beginning"--went upon to become something of a stock relation in a long and a great deal of discussed history of criticism that has positioned Venetian stylistic sensibilities opposite those of central Italy. [4] As the image that activeed the critique, the Danae predictably clinchs a prominent place in this discussion, as does its presum pendant, Venus and Adonis (Fig. 2) [5] thus too, does one of the undisguised progenitors of Titian's Danae, Michelangelo's Leda and the Swan, of about 1529-31 (Fig. 3) which itself is a descendant of the Medici Chapel Night, begun by the agency of 1524 (Fig. 4). And because Giorgio Vasari and Pietro Aretino were to advance Michelangelo by urging Titian's patrons to purchase a transcript of the Leda as well as paintings after Michelangelo's Venus Reclining with Cupid, 1532-33 the latter image has also assumed a place in this art historical game of one-upmanship (Fig. 5) [6]

As is the case with previous studies that focus upon any or several of these works of art, this single considers the images and contemporaneous descriptions of them by means of Lodovico Dolce, a friend and admirer of Titian and single of Michelangelo's more malicious detractors, and Pietro Aretino in relationship to individual another. [7] Given the circumstances surrounding the making and marketing of these paintings as well as replicas of them, it would be unjust to do otherwise. The competitive sparring between Titian and Michelangelo was true real and the stakes--patronage and status--were high. In the relatively small world of the cultur elite the husbandmans sellers, and buyers of art inevitably collided as patrons pursu renowned artists of talent and artists sought the favor of wealthy patrons. In this environment it was predictable that Michelangelo and Titian would proper head-to-head.

In 1529 Duke Alfonso d'Este of Ferrara, single of Titian's greatest and long-standing clients, had commissioned Michelangelo's Leda. Undoubtedly, Titian would have felt slighted by dint of the duke's defection, especially since he had sole recently produced three images of a similar kind for the same patron. presently however, the insult was assuaged when Titian received the patronage of the devoted Roman emperor, Charles V. however when Charles visited the Medici Chapel in May 1536 and squeeze outed publicly and without equivocation his admiration for Michelangelo's work--including the already celebrated Night--the gauntlet was thrown down. Titian was to remain securely in Charles's favor, notwithstanding in 1541 the professional antagonism between the sum of two units artists was aggravated anew. In that year Vasari visited Venice, bringing with him copies of sum of two units of Michelangelo's paintings: Leda and the Swan and Venus Reclining with Cupid. Vasari spring [i]or[/i] leap on one leg [i]or[/i] footed to present the paintings to Guidobaldo della Rovere duke of Urbino, "another of Titian's greatest in quantity importan t patrons. To make matters still worse, Aretino wrote to the duke in spring 1542 recommending the acquisition of the Michelangelesque Leda and Venus." [8]

As the foregoing makes clear, it is impossible to ignore what Lodovico Dolce described as the "jousting" that constituted the professional relationship between Michelangelo and Titian at this time. on the contrary the intent here is not to reassess the widely recognized polarities distinguishing the works of these sum of two units artists. Nor is the objective to reargue their respective places in the adjoining matter of the paragone, a debate upon the relative superiority of the arts and turn of expressions which in this case would pit Michelangelo's disegno against Titian's colorito. Instead, my goal is to advise an additional, or supplementary, way of looking at these pictures, single that acknowledges what has been dubbed "the artifice of seduction" and also recognizes what has more lately been described as "the erotic power of artificial beauty." [9] I insinuate that these works participate in what Baldassare Castiglione described in The volume of the Courtier, 1528, as "a certain circumspect dissimulation [una certa avvertita dissimulazione]," an elegan ce and grace that is facile notwithstanding calculated and deceptive. [10] In the connection of book 2 of The Courtier, "circumspect dissimulation" is about appearance, verisimilitude, and a apt chiastic inversion of class. In the adjoining matter of this article, "circumspect dissimulation" is an aesthetic that may best be characterized as an artful dissolution of differentiated categories aimed at heightening the viewer's appreciation through myriad means, such as sensorial stimulation and challenging conflations of sex identity. In putting forth this suggestion I take my wink from Aretino's promotional description of the Leda and Venus Reclining with Cupid as well as from Dolce's laudatory assessment of Venus and Adonis and Danae. the pair critics clearly recognize something beyond the paragone, something more than a network of clich[acute{e}]d contrapposti.