Titian and Tragic Painting – Aristotle′s Poetics and the Rise of the Modern Artist - Hardcover

Puttfarken, Thomas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300110006 ISBN 13: 9780300110005

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Late in his life Titian created a series of paintings - the 'Four Sinners', the 'poesie' for his patron Philip II of Spain, and the 'Final Tragedies' - that were dark in tone and content, full of pathos and physical suffering. In this major reinterpretation of Titian's art, Thomas Puttfarken shows that the often dramatic and violent subject matter of these works was not, as is often argued, the consequence of the artist's increasing age and sense of isolation and tragedy. Rather, these paintings were influenced by discussions of Aristotle's Poetics that permeated learned discourse in Italy in the mid-sixteenth century. The Poetics led directly to a rich theory of the visual arts, and painting in particular, that enabled artists like Titian to consider themselves on equal footing with poets. Puttfarken investigates Titian's late works in this context and analyses his relations with his patrons, his intellectual and humanistic contacts and his choices of subject matter, style and technique.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas Puttfarken, professor of art history and theory at the University of Essex, is also the author of The Discovery of Pictorial Composition: Theories of Visual Order in Painting 1400-1800 and Roger de Piles' Theory of Art, both published by Yale University Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0300110006
• ISBN 13: 9780300110005
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256