The following article is a compilation and updating of previous posts on Giorgione's "Laura", Titian's "Flora" and other mysterious beautiful women of the Venetian Renaissance who could all be Mary Magdalen.
Giorgione’s “Laura” had defied interpreters for
over 500 years. It is a relatively small half-length painting (41 x 33.6 cm) of a pensive young
woman who looks off to the right at the source of light that illuminates her
face and partially bare chest. She seems to wear only an oversized fur-lined garment
that is opened to reveal one bare breast. The painting now hangs in
Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum.
The catalog of the 2004 Giorgione exhibition,
jointly sponsored by the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Accademia in Venice,
called it a “Portrait of a Young Woman,” and only placed the popular title
“Laura” in parenthesis. Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, and Giovanna Nepi-Scire, two of
the world’s leading Giorgione scholars, and curators of their respective
museums, edited the entire catalog and also combined on the “Laura” catalog
entry. They did an excellent job of tracing the provenance of the painting and
firmly supporting the attribution to Giorgione. They also did a thorough
evaluation of the unique inscription on the back of the painting: “on June 1
1506 this was made by the hand of master Giorgio from Castelfranco, the
colleague of master Vincenzo Catena, at the instigation [instanzia] of misser
Giacomo.” [i]
The inscription was only deciphered in the nineteenth century but the two
scholars believed that there was good evidence to support its authenticity.
Today, most scholars agree that the seventeenth
century identification of the young woman as Petrarch’s lover, Laura, is not
tenable. Moreover, the painting cannot even be considered a portrait since no
respectable woman of the time would have sat for such a depiction. Some have
argued that it could be a depiction of a Venetian courtesan. The catalog
pointed out the finding of one scholar that the sumptuous fur-lined robe was
“the winter dress of a Venetian woman of pleasure.” On the other hand, there
are signs such as the thin white veil and the laurel that traditionally refer
to conjugal virtue. Here is the catalog’s summation.
as noted by Goffen (1997), the
thin white veil that partly covers her hair and falls over her breast is a
typical accessory of married women…. The paradox that accompanies the
interpretation of this painting lies in the fact that laurel is also a symbol
of conjugal virtue…Giorgione’s Laura—regardless of whether she is a learned
courtesan or a virtuous wife—is characterized by the extraordinary charge of
sensuality and eroticism that makes this image unique in the painting of the
early 16th century.
The “Laura” might not be as unique as the authors
of the catalog entry suggest.
Other contemporary paintings also exhibit a mixture of eroticism and
conjugal virtue and they have also defied interpreters. However, I believe that
the “Laura” and these other paintings might all have a “sacred” subject, and
that subject is Mary Magdalen.
I don’t know if I am the first to suggest Mary
Magdalen as the subject of the “Laura” but recent catalogs do not even consider
the possibility. All do point out the paradoxical iconographic symbols: the appearance
of a Venetian courtesan combined with symbols of chastity and conjugal love
such as the laurel leaves and headscarf.
Mary Magdalen is the only person who fits such a
description. After the Madonna she was the most famous female saint of the
Middle Ages. During the Renaissance she was regarded as a prostitute who after
her encounter with Jesus became a true and virtuous bride of Christ. After her
conversion she is often portrayed with breasts bared as a sign that she has
thrown away her worldly finery and chosen the life of a desert contemplative. Correggio's
later version of the saint bears a striking similarity to Giorgione's "Laura."
Her breasts are bared but the rest of her is covered with a sumptuous blue
robe, She is easily recognized by her jar of precious oil, a stock symbol that
Giorgione characteristically omitted.
 |
| Correggio: Mary Magdalen |
In 2001 Paul Joannides discussed another painting
of a young woman that he claimed bore a similarity to the "Laura." He
noted that it had often been attributed to Giorgione but insisted
that "the closest comparisons are with Titian's work and there can be
no serious doubt that it is his…."[ii]
He continued:
The Bust of a Young Woman is often
thought to be a portrait of a courtesan,…There is an obvious link of mood and
gesture with Giorgione’s Laura,…it is probably a fragment of a narrative composition….But
the action is ambiguous: is she opening her dress to reveal her breast, like
Laura, or closing it in modesty? Given the high finish and luxurious color,
this fragment is more likely to have formed part of a painting for a private
house than a public place…
Perhaps more likely is that she is a Magdalene
in a Mary and Martha, the subject represented in Milan in the work of
Bernardino Luini and his circle and one that would certainly have appealed to
Titian, allowing him to contrast female types. But without further evidence no
suggestion can be more than speculative.
Joannides failed to mention that the multi-colored
striped shawl that covers the shoulder of the woman in the “Bust of a Young Woman”
is the same one that Titian used years later in one of his many obvious
depictions of Mary Magdalen.
Titian became the most prolific and famous painter
of Mary Magdalens, and his many versions of a beautiful, semi-nude, weeping
penitent Magdalen spread all over Europe. He did not depict the gaunt Magdalen
of Donatello, emaciated after years of fasting in the desert, but a still
beautiful woman who has only recently thrown off her courtesan's finery, and
appears covered only by her gorgeous red hair.
It is also possible that before he settled on these
full figured bare breasted Magdalens, the young Titian also painted a more
discrete but equally beautiful Mary Magdalen in the mysterious painting that is
now called “Flora.” This famous painting that now hangs in the Uffizi gallery
is dated to around 1517, only a decade after the “Laura.” It also features a
beautiful young woman in an obvious state of undress who looks pensively off to
the right at the source of the light that illuminates her face and torso.
No one has ever been able to make more than a guess
about the subject of the “Flora”. It was only in the mid-seventeenth century
that a commentator attached the name of the Roman goddess of flowers to the
beautiful woman in the painting. Although the name has stuck, modern scholars
have brought forth objections and offered their own hesitant interpretations.
In 1980
Charles Hope introduced the painting in his catalog by noting that Titian
“painted virtually no mythological pictures based in this way on ekphrastic
texts, and none at all of comparable scale or importance.” He added that while
Venetian patrons might have been interested in erotic subjects, “they were
relatively indifferent to classical precedent.”
[iii]
Hope looked in another direction for the meaning of
the “Flora.”
But there was also a distinctive and more pervasive
local tradition of pictures in portrait format of anonymous pretty girls,
either clothed or partially nude, which were no more than elaborate pin-ups….
The identity of the girl as Flora is established both by the flowers in her
hand and by her costume, which is of the type worn by nymphs in contemporary
stage productions…
Although
he remarked that the subject was treated with “extreme sensitivity and
discretion,” the painting was still a pin-up whose erotic implications are
“central to its meaning.”
In
a 2003 catalog of an exhibition at London’s National Gallery, David Jaffe saw
the connection between Flora and Laura.
Flora is perhaps the supreme example of a genre
developed in early sixteenth-century Venice showing ‘belle donne’, beautiful
women, for the sake simply of their beauty. They were neither portraits—as such
they would have seemed improper—nor did they usually have allegorical
significance or mythological references….Titian did not invent the type, but
developed the tradition represented by works such as Giorgione’s ‘Laura’….
The painting is a magnificent evocation of
sensuality. The tumbling locks of hair, sometimes minutely described, trail
down across her cheek and shoulder to her undergarment, which laps her breast
and shoulder in undulating waves…before ebbing into the barely supported rose
cloth which she gathers, or is perhaps discarding…
The image may be read as a generalized ‘Venus’ type.
The flowers, perhaps roses, suggest identification with Flora.[iv]
In
the catalog of the 2006 Bellini, Giorgione, Titian exhibition jointly sponsored
by Washington’s National Gallery and Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, Sylvia
Ferino Pagden considered the Flora “the finest and most successful of all
sensuous half-length female figures in sixteenth-century Venetian painting….”
She noted its “Venus-like sensuousness” but pointed out the ambiguity of the
subject.
If it was Titian’s intention here to depict Flora,
was he thinking of Ovid’s goddesses or Boccaccio’s courtesan? Or is his
portrait an artistic blending of the two?...yet his Flora has more the demeanor
of a goddess….her lack of attention to the viewer makes him aware of his own
insignificance….
Titian’s re-creation of the classical goddess,
however, lacks any reference to antiquity, even in the drapery….Flora’s
chemise—usually seen merely peeking out from under a gown at the neck and
sleeves but here serving as her main article of clothing overlaid by a cloth of
brocade or damask—does not correspond to that of any classical figure and
certainly not a Venetian bride…[v]
It
should be noted that Titian’s “Flora” bears little resemblance to the goddess
of flowers. There are no flowers tumbling from her hair and her dress was
depicted by Ovid as adorned with many colors. Ferino-Pagden did identify the flowers in the hands
of Flora as rose, jasmine, and violet and claimed that they provide “a key to
interpreting her.” However, she provided no further explanation.
In her study, “Nature and Its Symbols,” Lucia
Impelluso noted that “the jasmine has often been considered a flower of Heaven
or a symbol of divine love.” While usually associated with the innocence and
purity of the Virgin Mary, it can often be seen “woven into garlands adorning
the heads of angels and saints.” Moreover, “if associated with roses, it can
connote faith.”
[vi] The
wild rose is traditionally associated with Mary Magdalen. As far as the violet
is concerned, Impelluso noted:
In the popular imagination, the little,
strong-scented violet is a symbol of modesty and humility, and it was
interpreted likewise by the Fathers of the Church as well.
I
realize that the jasmine, rose, and violet that “Flora” holds in her hand could
refer to some one else, but one should certainly at least suspect Mary
Magdalen.
Giorgione’s
“Laura,” Titian’s early “courtesan,” and the “Flora” could all be considered
versions of Mary Magdalen. One significant objection, however, is the absence
in each instance of the jar of ointment that is always associated with the
Magdalen. Later, Titian displayed it prominently in his more obvious Magdalens.
Perhaps
in this brief moment in time Venetian artists had come to believe that they
could depict the essence of the Magdalen without resort to obvious
iconographical symbols. Earlier, Giovanni Bellini had painted a Madonna and
Child surrounded by two female saints. One is obviously Mary Magdalen but she
is only recognized by her flowing red hair.
Appropriately,
“Flora” was the poster girl for the recently concluded Tiziano exhibition at
Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale. Her image was on the cover of the little
pamphlet given to all visitors and posters of her were plastered all over Rome.
Perhaps she and Laura and the other “belle donne” of the Venetian renaissance
can be called pin ups but it is certainly conceivable that they are also Mary
Magdalen.
###
Dr.
Francis P. DeStefano
8/19/2013
[i] Giorgione,
Myth and Enigma, ed. Sylvia Ferino-Pagden and Giovanna Nepi-Scire,
Vienna, 2004, pp. 197-8. Only the first catalog quote is cited.
[ii]Joannides,
Paul:
Titian to 1518, Yale, 2001, pp. 94-96.
[iii]Hope,
Charles:
Titian, NY, 1980, pp. 61-2.
[iv] Titian,
catalogue edited by David Jaffe, London, 2003, catalog entry 11.
[v] Brown, David
Alan, and Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia,
Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the
Renaissance of Venetian Painting, Washington, 2006, p. 226.
[vi] Impelluso,
Lucia:
Nature and Its Symbols, translated by Stephen Sartarelli, Los
Angeles, 2003, p. 101.
Giorgione: "Portrait of a Young Woman (Laura)." 41 x 33.6 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
