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Show reveals relationships

July 27, 2006 1:30 am

By SHEILA WICKOUSKI

For THE FREE LANCE-STAR

For all the religious controversy surrounding "The Da Vinci Code," an art historian might well be puzzled by author Dan Brown's selection of Da Vinci over Titian as the artist who held clues about the role of Mary Magdelene.

Maybe it was because focusing on Titian would have left little mystery. One look at the "Noli Me Tangere" (translated as "do not touch me") makes it only too clear that Titian's interpretation of Christ appearing to Mary Magdelene after the Resurrection is a sensual experience.

The work, now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, is part of the sensational 16th-century exhibit "Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting."

Of course, Titian's blending of the human form with the divine aspects of Christ would fuel debate on its own. The mere fact that this, and the other 59 or so glorious works in this blockbuster exhibit, were created in a time of grave crisis--when Venice was riddled with plague, fire and war--is amazing.

The first three catastrophic decades of the 1500s were also the most visually exciting, a "Golden Age," in which these three great artists worked to produce pieces that are still vibrant nearly 500 years later.

Drawing from their rich collections of Italian Renaissance works, the NGA and exhibit co-organizer the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria, have included pieces from world collections, including those of the Louvre in Paris; the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain; the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy; and the National Gallery in London.

The show focuses on the relationships of the artists at that time and includes pieces by dozens who worked with the three most celebrated masters.

The masterpieces exemplify the new ideas in music, the pastoral landscape, the female nude and the romantic portrait that came about during this exciting phase of the Renaissance.

The exhibit list reads like the index of an art history textbook.

Many will think back to a Christmas card they've received along the way when they see Giorgione's "Adoration of the Shepherds."

Art history students will recognize Bellini and Titian's "Feast of The Gods," which was completed by Titian after Bellini's death.

Neither Madonnas nor matrons, but muses, Giorgione's ethereal "Laura" and Titian's semi-dressed "Flora" have secrets of their own. Across the room, Giorgione's "La Vecchia" is an image of a woman who shows the ravages of age. Some believe she is the same person who posed as a young woman in "The Tempest" (which is not included in this show).

Titian's "Pastoral Concert" is here--for the first time ever in the United States, and only the second time ever outside of France since Louis XIV acquired it in 1671.

One gallery is devoted to displaying what conservation studies have revealed about the methods used by the Venetian painters.

The last gallery, which is totally devoted to images of men, displays a transformation in portrait painting. The nobility of the courtly subjects is conveyed, not by their dress and symbols of power, but within the figures themselves. The ideal and the real merge.

This show was 13 years in the making. Visually seductive and rich with exciting ideas, it is one that visitors will long savor.

As a footnote, for those who are still wondering about Da Vinci, the National Gallery of Art owns one of his famous portraits of a woman--"Ginevra de Benci," which can be found in its own superb galleries of Italian Renaissance works.