Venus of Urbino Altered

I wanted to send Sarah a thank you for hosting the Cinderella swap so I decided to make an ATC. However all of my creative juices went on vaca for the moment so I hopped over to Think Monday Think ATC to get a little inspiration and boy did I.

This fascinating video Women in Art prompted me to make women in art the challenge of this week. Let yourself get inspired by it, or by portraits that touched your heart, or maybe there’s a favourite painter you’d like to show on an ATC.

I selected Titian’s Venus of Urbino as my base for the ATC. I just wish more of it could have fit onto the ATC. The word inspirational is a rub on and the butterfly coveres the images womanly aspects :) I then covered the image with a Mica Tile and attached it to the image using fishing wire and seed beads. Lastly I added some micro beeds areound the edges.

A little history: taken from Gardner’s Art through the Ages 11th edition volumn II by Tred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya and Richard G. Tansey

In 1538, at the height of his powers, Titian painted the so-called Venus of Urbino for Guidobaldo II, duke of Urbino. The title (given to the painting later) elevates what probably merely represents a courtesan in her bedchamber to the status of classical mythology, Indeed, no evidence suggest the duke intended the commission as anything more than a female nude for his private enjoyment. Whether the subject is divine or mortal, Titian based his version on an earlier (and pioneering) painting of Venus by Giorgione. Here, Titian established the compositional elements and the standard for reclining female nude paintings, regardless of the many variations that ensued. This “Venus” reclines on the gentle slope of her luxurious pillowed couch, the linear play of the draperies contrasting with her body’s sleek continuous volume. At her feet is a pendant (balancing) figure-in this case, a slumbering lap dog. Behind her, a simple drape both places her figure emphatically in the foreground and indicates a vista into the background at the right half of the picture. Two servants bend over a chest apparently searching for garments. (Renaissance households stored clothing in carved wooden chests called cassoni) to clothe „Venus“Beyond them, a smaller vista opens into a landscape. Titian masterfully constructed the view backward into space and the division of the space into progressively smaller units. With his facility, he used all of the resources of pictorial representation to create original and exquisite effect of the sort that inspired generations of painters in Italy and the north.

As in other Venetian painting, color plays a prominent role in Venus of Urbino. The red tones of the matron’s skirt and the muted reds of the tapestries against the neutral whites of the matron’s sleeves and of the kneeling girl’s gown echo the deep Venetian reds set off against the pale neutral whites of the linen and the warm ivory gold of the flesh. Viewers must study the picture carefully to realize the subtlety of color planning. For instance, the two deep reds (in the foreground cushions and in the background skirt) function so importantly in the composition as a gauge of distance and as indicators of an implied diagonal opposed to the real one of the reclining figure. Here, Titian used color not simply for tinting preexisting forms but also to organize his placement of forms.