Picture from Carbon Print by Braun, Clément & Co.
John Andrew & Son. Sc.
THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN (DETAIL)
Venice Academy
The Virgin rises buoyantly through the air, and the figure is so full of life and motion that it seems as if it would presently soar beyond our sight. The heavy folds of the skirt swirl about the body in the swiftness of the ascent. The rushing air fills the mantle like the sail of a ship. Yet the source of motion is not within the figure itself, for we see the feet resting firmly on the cloud. It is as if she were borne aloft in a celestial chariot composed of an angelic host.
The face is lifted with a look of rapture; the arms are extended in a gesture of exultation. The pose of the head displays the beautiful throat, strong and full like that of a singer. The features are cast in a large, majestic mould. The hands, turned palm outward, are large and flexible, but with delicate, tapering fingers.
We have already seen in other pictures what was Titian’s conception of the Virgin in her girlhood and motherhood. We find little of the ethereal and spiritual in his ideal, and nothing that would in any way suggest that true piety is morbid or sentimental. Other painters have erred in this direction, but not Titian. To him the Virgin was no angel in disguise, but a strong, happy, healthy woman, rejoicing in life. But though a woman, she was in the poet’s phrase “a woman above all women glorified.” She possessed in perfection all the good gifts of human nature. Titian’s ideal coincided with the old Greek formula, “A sound mind in a sound body.” The Virgin of the Assumption is in fact not unlike a Greek goddess in her magnificently developed physique and glorious beauty.
Our illustration includes a few of the baby angels from the wreath supporting the Madonna. They are packed so closely together in the picture that their little limbs interlace like interwoven stems in a garland of flowers. Yet the figures are cunningly arranged to bring into prominence a series of radiating lines which flow towards a centre in the Madonna’s face. We see in the corner of our print a little arm pointing to the Virgin, and above it is a cherub’s wing drawn in the same oblique line.