Object Annotation #2

Context/Subject/Style

Eberhart

Puglisi & Jefferey

Info

Created between the 1445 and 1452, Titian’s Venus with an Organist is one of five mediations that artist created of Venus with a musician. Drawing upon earlier reclining nudes from his oeuvre, the artwork depicts the titular figure laid across an undefined mass of red, velvety blankets and soft pillows; She attends to a dog in the composition’s lower right corner while an organist looks on at their interactions. The towering pipes and decorative gorgon head of the organ dominate the far left of the painting; its color palette—a distinctive ochre yellow and black— is reflected within the musician, creating a visual link between performer and instrument. Beyond the foreground, a large window frames the audience’s view of the picturesque garden that lays before them—- a bubbling fountain depicting a mythical satyr, a couple strolling in the fresh air, and a variety of animals converge within the clearly delineated grounds. While the details of its production—-why it was made and who for—- are unknown to the greater public, it is established that the work was publicly owned; therefore, creating opportunity for those viewing to revisit the work at their own leisure.

Within her analysis of Venus with an Organist, Eberhart posits that the interplay of the senses—primarily sight and sound— organize the space of Titian’s painting as well as prompting the viewer's response. The division of the composition into foreground and background, as well as into the Aristotelian “Metaphysics” of feminine left and masculine right, is both defined and determined by sound. (84) The organ is touched by its player to produce sound—the active, masculine right—and Venus receives that sound both aurally and haptically—-passive, feminine left; the dog greets Venus—his bark reverberating through the interior of the painting—-effectively interrupting the performance, pulling the musician out of his own temporal reality and into hers. (85) The background converges with the foreground through a series of visual and aural echoes—the couple in the garden mirroring the titular figures and their accompanying dog mirroring that of Venus’ companion—-pulling the viewer into a wider exploration of the painting’s composition in totality. (86) These associations emphasize the auditory qualities inherent to these visual components and guide the viewer's eyes through the narrative that Titian creates: a singular moment in time when a man’s control over his audience is subverted by a dog’s bark. (85)

Puglisi

This singular moment, a painting’s temporal reality, can be further explained through the exploration of Puglisi’s “Talking Pictures: Sound in Caravaggio’s Art”. Similarly to Caravaggio’s inclusion of open-mouthed figures, the dog’s bark, or perceived bark, within Venus with an Organist indicates a moment of heightened aural and visual experience—-one that can be recognized and echoed within the minds of the viewer. (116-117, 118) Evoking the viewers’ durational perception of the moment, the transitory bark would further emphasize the temporal qualities of the scene and enliven an otherwise static painting. (117)

Jefferey

Jefferey’s understanding of the transformation of Byzantine churches as pivotal for the evolution of liturgical practices directly opposes the ideas that Eberhart presents on the interplays of sound and space. While Jefferey alludes to the the dominating role that architecture plays within the aurality of mass—-as exemplified by the movement of the ambo from near the choir enclosure to next to the altar in order to account for the elongated nave of the updated basilica floor plan—Eberhart posits that the sound dictates Titian’s compositions; at least the viewer’s experience of them. (18, 20, 21)

Questions:

• Eberhart introduces touch as an activating sense within Titian’s Venus with an Organist, how do the conclusions that she draws within her article change if that activation is removed?
• There is a clear divergence in the theses of Eberhart and Jefferey: How do the audiences they have in mind affect the conclusions that they draw between space and aurality?
• How does the knowledge of Venus and the Organist’s existence as a part of a group of five mediations on the same subject matter alter our evaluation of the work? Does the presumption of its primacy within the series impart on the viewer a tendency to impose similar reading of aurality on the following Venuses?