Flight into Egypt

Titian · 1508

Flight into Egypt - Titian

Mary and the infant Jesus ride a donkey through a wide green countryside, with deer, an ox and a shepherd with his flock around them. This very early canvas, usually given to Titian, turns a desperate escape into a pastoral landscape.

The story behind the painting

The Flight into Egypt is an oil painting usually attributed to Titian, made in about 1508 or 1509 at the very start of his career; Wikidata gives 1508. It is in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Some scholars dispute the attribution, but it is usually accepted as one of his works. Its bold brushwork and exhilarating use of colour have led it to be described as one of Titian's masterpieces, as well as one of his earliest.

What to look for

The canvas is large; Wikipedia gives about 11 by 7.5 feet, while Wikidata gives 206 by 336 cm. Green dominates, in muted tones, and sets the scene as a pastoral landscape. Mary and the baby Jesus ride a donkey, and around them Titian placed other animals, including deer and an ox. In the background a shepherd tends his flock. The Holy Family are not set at the centre of the canvas, yet the picture is framed around the image of Mary caring for the infant on the road to safety.

Meaning and intent

The Gospel of Matthew tells how an angel warned Joseph in a vision to take the family to Egypt, because King Herod would try to kill the child. The painting plays a double role: it is a religious history painting of that journey and a landscape that uses the flight as the subject for a pastoral scene. Landscapes were not especially popular in Italian Renaissance painting, but Titian used this story to show an idealised countryside. The shepherd may also refer symbolically to Jesus as the good shepherd.

Legacy

Titian returned to the subject in his Rest on the Flight into Egypt, around 1512. In that later work Mary and Joseph wear the same clothing and look the same as here, which suggests that Titian may have used the same models for both paintings. Coming at the beginning of his career, this canvas already shows the colour and freedom of brush that would define him, and it shows a young painter giving the natural world an unusually large role in a sacred story.

Did you know?

Wikipedia · Wikidata

About the artist

Titian (1488-1576)

religious art · Mary · High Renaissance · Christ Child · boy · Venetian school · Hermitage Museum · landscape · Saint Joseph · Holy Family

More by Titian