XIII Flora
Besides the portraits intended as actual likenesses of the sitters, Titian was fond of painting what may be called ideal portraits, or fancy pictures. While real persons furnished the original models for these, the painter let his imagination have free play in modifying and perfecting form and feature. We have seen an illustration of this process in the picture called the Bella, an idealized portrait of Eleanora Gonzaga. The Flora is another example.
We do not know the name of the original, but we may be sure that it represents an actual person. There is a tradition that she was the daughter of one of Titian’s fellow-painters, Palma, with whom he was in love. As a matter of fact, Palma had no daughter, and the young woman was doubtless only a favorite Venetian model whom both painters employed. Apparently it was she who posed for both figures in the picture of Medea and Venus which we have studied.26
Flora’s hair is of that auburn tint which the Venetians loved, and which, it is believed, was artificially produced. It is looped into soft, waving puffs over the ears, and gathered back by a silken cord, below which it falls like a delicate veil thinly spread over the shoulders. The skin is exquisitely white and soft, and the thin garment has been allowed to slip from one shoulder so that we may see the full, beautiful neck.
We notice with what art the painter has arranged the draperies. From the right shoulder the garment falls in delicate, radiating folds across the figure. Over the garment is thrown a stiff, rose-colored brocade mantle, contrasting pleasantly with the former both in color and texture. A glimpse of this mantle is seen at the right side and above the left shoulder and arm, over which the hand gathers it up to prevent it from slipping. This action of the left hand introduces a new set of lines into the picture, breaking the folds of the drapery into eddying circles which offset the more sweeping lines of the composition. 27
The drawing here is well worth studying, and we may give it more attention since we must lose the lovely color of the painting in the reproduction. The main lines flow in diagonals in two opposite directions. There is the long line of the right arm and shoulder drawn in a fine, strong curve across the canvas. Parallel with it is the edge of the brocade mantle as it is held in the left hand. The counter lines are the curve of the neck and left shoulder, with which the upper edge of the undergarment runs parallel. The wide spaces between these enclosing lines are broken by sprays of radiating lines, one formed by the folds of the undergarment, and the other smaller one by the locks of hair on the left shoulder.
The graceful pose of the head, inclined to one side, suggests the soft languor of a southern temperament. It was often adopted by Titian, and we see another instance in the attitude of the Venus. We fancy that the painters liked particularly the long curve thus obtained along the neck and shoulder. The angle made on the other side between head and shoulder is filled in with the falling hair.
The title of Flora is given to the picture after the fashion of Titian’s time for drawing subjects from mythology. The revival of classic learning had opened to Italian art a delightful new field of illustration. We see how Titian took advantage of it in such pictures as Medea and Venus. In England the love of the classics was seen in the poetry which took much the same place there that painting held in Italy. Flora was the ancient goddess of flowers and is made much of in Elizabethan verse. 28 Some pretty lines by Richard Carlton describe
“When Flora fair the pleasant tidings bringeth
Of summer sweet with herbs and flowers adorned.”
In our picture the goddess holds a handful of flowers, roses, jessamine and violets, as a sign of her identity. We confess that her type of beauty hardly corresponds to our ideal of Flora. She is a gentle, amiable creature, but not ethereal and poetic enough for the goddess of flowers. Were we to choose a character for her from mythology it would be Juno, the matronly “ox-eyed” goddess, who presided over marriage and whose emblem was the productive pomegranate.
As we compare Flora with the other fair women of our collection, we see that her beauty is of a less elegant and aristocratic type than that of the Bella, and less delicate and refined than that of the Empress Isabella. Her face is perhaps too broad to satisfy a connoisseur of beauty, and she is quite plainly of plebeian caste. Like Lavinia her charm is in the healthy vitality which was the special characteristic of the Venetian beauties of the time. The figure glows with warm pulsing life.