Assumption of the Virgin

Titian · 1510s

Twelve astonished apostles reach toward the sky as Mary, robed in red and blue, rises into a blaze of golden light. Titian's Assunta made Venice see painting in a new way.

The story behind the painting

Titian painted this enormous altarpiece in 1515-1518 for the high altar of the Frari church in Venice, where it still stands; Wikidata gives the 1510s. It was his first major commission for a Venetian church and brought his art great public attention. He worked on it in the church, and according to Carlo Ridolfi the friars often questioned the size of the figures; Titian explained they had to be large to register from a distance. He painted it on 21 horizontal cedar planks, 3 centimetres thick, which can still be detected. The unveiling on 19 May 1518 was noted by the diarist Marino Sanuto. Lodovico Dolce later claimed the public at first defamed the picture, though his account is doubtful. Ridolfi's tale that Charles V's ambassador offered to buy it seems untrue, since the ambassador was not in Venice.

What to look for

The figures fill three zones separated by light. On the ground the apostles crowd together in dramatic poses, gazing up, kneeling and reaching for the sky. Find Saint Peter at the centre with his hands joined in prayer, and Saint John, the younger man in red to his left. In the middle Mary stands on clouds in a red robe and blue mantle, making her own gesture of astonishment, surrounded by angels melting into radiant cloud. Above, God the Father waits as an angel on the right holds out a crown for her. There is no landscape, only a blue-grey sky below and golden light above. Look at the base for glimpses of Mary's stone sarcophagus, and for the signature TITIANUS below Saint Peter.

Meaning and intent

The Franciscans of the Frari keenly promoted the doctrine of the Assumption, which was optional in Titian's time and only declared an article of faith in 1950. The discreet sarcophagus lets viewers who believed Mary rose before death simply overlook it. Stylistically the picture marked a new direction: Titian showed awareness of Raphael and Michelangelo, and his agitated apostles broke with the meditative stillness of Venetian saints in the tradition of Giovanni Bellini. The golden upper zone recalls the gold grounds of mosaics and Gothic painting. The rounded top lets the choir-screen arch frame the painting for a viewer standing on the central axis, even at the back of the nave.

Legacy

Soon recognised as a masterpiece, the Assunta confirmed Titian as the leading artist in Venice and a rival to Michelangelo and Raphael. It is the largest altarpiece in the city, 668 by 344 centimetres. Candle grease darkened it; Joshua Reynolds in 1752 called it terribly dark but nobly painted. In 1817 it was moved to the Gallerie dell'Accademia, which is why Wikidata lists both locations, and in 1919 it returned to its original place at the Frari. Titian himself is buried in the same church, and his nineteenth-century monument there includes a relief version of the Assumption.