Rethinking the Renaissance Courtesan: Contemporary Interpretation of Three Paintings by Titian (Tiziano Vecellio, c. 1485-1576)
By Catherine Lynne Yellig
Master’s Thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2007
Abstract: This study examines three representations of female nudes by Tiziano Vecellio (Titian, 1485-1576). They include: the Venus of Urbino (1538, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy), Venus with a Mirror (1553, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC), and Danae (1554, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain). I argue that by reading these three paintings and relating them to courtesans as we come to know them through words and images of the sixteenth-century, one can begin to see the establishment of the cortigiana onesta (honest courtesan) in relation to Titian’s painting. During the Renaissance a female’s identity was not defined by her own individuality, rather a woman was defined by the ideological power structures that governed sixteenth-century Venice. Prostitution was a means to an end, and women who practiced carnal commerce found themselves in a better position if they catered to the desires of the Urban Italian elite. In this study I will try to show how Titian translated the literary and poetic ideals of his contemporaries into painterly representations of the onesta model.
Click here to read this thesis from OhioLink
By Catherine Lynne Yellig
Master’s Thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2007
Abstract: This study examines three representations of female nudes by Tiziano Vecellio (Titian, 1485-1576). They include: the Venus of Urbino (1538, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy), Venus with a Mirror (1553, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC), and Danae (1554, Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain). I argue that by reading these three paintings and relating them to courtesans as we come to know them through words and images of the sixteenth-century, one can begin to see the establishment of the cortigiana onesta (honest courtesan) in relation to Titian’s painting. During the Renaissance a female’s identity was not defined by her own individuality, rather a woman was defined by the ideological power structures that governed sixteenth-century Venice. Prostitution was a means to an end, and women who practiced carnal commerce found themselves in a better position if they catered to the desires of the Urban Italian elite. In this study I will try to show how Titian translated the literary and poetic ideals of his contemporaries into painterly representations of the onesta model.
Click here to read this thesis from OhioLink
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