Tiziano Vecellio (Pieve di Cadore, circa 1490 – 27 August 1576): even the name alone evokes shining canvases and dazzling colors. But d should also be taken into accountthe "another Tiziano", che is not the best known, that is, not that of the "Sacred and profane love"or"Venus of Urbino"but the Tiziano in recent years, so outdated and tended to a search that goes far beyond the "beautiful way" of the golden years.

First indication of this trend in the work of the artist is the Portrait of Pietro Aretino, preserved in Palazzo Pitti. The friendship between the two is known, which seems to have cracked precisely because of this portrait, which to the portrayed seemed to be executed in haste and fury: Titian was aging, his pictorial conception, both from the theoretical point of view, and from the technical one was changing, it seemed to reverse rather than evolve.

"Flaying of Marsyas", preserved in Kromeriz, a town in the Czech Republic, is another painting by the extreme Titian, one of the most extraordinary. It represents the epilogue of the well-known musical challenge between Apollo and Marsyas, who is punished in the atrocious way mentioned in the title for daring to challenge the god. The chromatism of this painting, as in the others of the last period of the artist's life, is like liquefied wax, you feel its body and incandescence, you seem to see the color dripping from the canvas, like the blood of Marsyas. It would take images photographed in grazing light to realize it if you can't look at it in presence. The pensive King Midas, a probable self-portrait of Titian, seems to meditate on the merciless fate of the satyr (and, admittedly, by extension, of man) victim of the whim of the divinity.

In this dark period, quivering artistic suffering and thought, also belongs the perhaps too little known "Mercy", preserved in Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.

It is "strange" in every way: from the compositional structure to the colors, indeed, to the "non-colors"; it is truly "livid". One wonders what went through the mind of a great painter like Titian to achieve such a result.

Aesthetically speaking (by "aesthetics" we mean common taste) it really seems a decidedly unpleasant painting, with even disproportionate composition: the figures so small, below and the architecture so intrusive, looming over them in height and proportions. And then, the brushstroke: definitely unusual if you think it came from such a great hand; it is given in touches, flashes and the color is dark, mixed, "dirty" compared to the past splendors. By "dirty" color the writer generally means that which, perhaps mixed by an inexperienced painter, does not turn out to be brilliant when melted, which becomes "muddy": well, one can only come to the conclusion that that "non-color color" is absolutely and purposely wanted and that it is precisely the leitmotif of the painting, created with a palette made exclusively of brown and yellow earths, greens and reds, in combinations and fusions that are anything but bright and pleasant.

And then the general effect of the Opera is shocking: everything in that painting seems to be inconsistent, crumbling and coming off the canvas. Even the statues arouse amazement: Moses on the left and the female figure with the Cross, on the right (it could be the Sibyl of the Hellespont, who predicted the death of Jesus), have a haughty aspect, like pagan heroes and seem to have to crumble from a moment to the next.

As for the compositional system, it is decidedly incredible, compared to the custom of even Titian himself; upon careful analysis, it appears to be achieved, ultimately, upsetting a vertical architectural background symmetry with a transverse one that passes over the heads of the figures and is tangent, in turn, to a circle, half of which is constituted by the small frescoed apse at the top . The putto candle takes on a compositional meaning: it serves to "balance" the scene which otherwise would tend all the way to the left. Skillful found, of course; but what matters in a composition are the guidelines that lead the eye to focus on what the author considers to be the focus of the painting.

One wonders where this fulcrum is here, but it is not clear. The eye is confused, it doesn't know where to look (brilliant!); who looks, then, already deceived by the source of light that he does not find, is tempted to desist and tends to look away. Only the stubbornness of trying to "understand", he manages to keep him in the vision. Eventually, inevitably, he concludes that the whole composition appears to be the contradiction of itself. Then he turns to the characters: it is on them that he points his gaze, after the first, violent visual impact with the whole; but he does not expect better fate.

Those figures come out of the canvas bewildered, uncertain, overwhelmed by the very layout of the composition. Our Lady is there with Jesus in her arms with the expression of someone who wants to say: "Here he is: my son is here, dead, they killed him. But nobody cares. "; Magdalene calls someone, she has a jerk of movement, but she remains petrified: no one answers her? The putto on the ground collects in a white cloth bag, no one knows what, perhaps some relics; but she does it stealthily, as if she were afraid of being discovered by the same protagonists of the tragedy (an anticlerical Titian's arrow against the greed of the earthly Church?).

It is useless for the cherub in flight to try to illuminate something with that long candle we were talking about earlier. And then, what light does it project? It is not he who illuminates, on the contrary that candle does not emit light at all, it does not create any shadow of its own: the main light seems to come from Christ's halo and is a grazing light, which is difficult to identify and deceives those who look and search in the painting. a predominant light source: at first glance it is not found.

And finally, what about that poor prone, half-naked old man who, desolate, crawling, watches the scene? Nicodemus, probably or, as some note, San Gerolamo. He seems to look at the Madonna in the face more than Christ; but Our Lady ignores him, Christ is dead and therefore she cannot see him or hear him, Magdalene is bent on calling those who do not come. You wonder what that poor old man is doing there. The only reason seems to be for dragging himself to look closely at those beings who would be considered otherworldly, but whom he sees there, next to him, and who also, evidently, feel so clearly distant, so much so as to give bottom to a very human, extreme, excruciating curiosity.

His remaining prone, however, in any case makes the holy figures represented protagonists of the picture, placing them on a different "plane", if not from a temporal point of view, at least from a visual one. However, this gives them a well-studied value that turns them to the sacred and places them in a place where they are protagonists. But it is also natural to wonder what place that is. Just as the user cannot understand it, forced by the brilliant painter to wander with his gaze, not even the old man seems to have any idea. It is not a tomb, but it is not a church; it is not an altar nor a temple. It is a mysterious, frightening place, a place that remains indefinite and indefinable even by looking at it as closely as possible. The old man, first of all, seems to be afraid of it, he is alone and crawls towards the Truth. But what truth? Where did it go? If that were Heaven, it would be horrible! But no one knows ... no one knows ... neither he nor who looks at the painting.

One can only conclude that, obviously, Titian himself was the first to know, that with great probability he represented himself in that old man and that, by asking all those unsolved and unsolvable questions to the user, he was the first to ask them and put them to himself. But, as was the case with the old man in the painting, he received no response and his Faith was clearly wavering. As his death approached, that uncertainty made the last days of his long life even more painful and terrible. Nothing is more terrifying to the genius than feeling stuck in his own unquenchable thirst for knowledge. And death is a big block, an insurmountable and inevitable obstacle that prevents you from exploring Eternity in advance.

All the great, sooner or later, in any field of art, come up against the idea of ​​death and the afterlife; and often, in these cases, the "aesthetic" process is reversed or in any case assumes connotations of rebellion and despair that prelude to an encounter with the mystery of the afterlife. This is the reason for the essence of this "extreme" masterpiece, in which the tension towards a Beyond is perceived, which is to be considered both artistic and spiritual; it also captures the lack of physical strength in approaching death, along with the sense of rejection for this decay; and of the spiritual ones in the collapse of certainties given by the time spent long meditating, aging and expressing in painting all one's tragedy of living and waiting for the cessation of living.

In particular, in the works of this period by Titian and, therefore, especially in "La Pietà", the last work of his life, a doubt of the mind and soul seems to spread so deep as to exasperate and even appear an indictment against God, in such an incredulous vision, that he ultimately turns out to be tragically hopeless. There is no room for redemption in the afterlife in this Work, perhaps there is no room even for what remains of the Faith. It seems that the Eternal is considered a chess player, who uses men as pawns, giving them fame, honors and commissions and then rushing them without a reason. A dark, burning vision.

The great Vecellio was temporally only a step away from seeing all this in “La Pietà” and was fully aware of it. His work is, therefore, so immense that it appears, in spite of itself, "supernatural", an extreme document of unfathomable depth of a last, horrified message of earthly and divine uncertainty.

In fact, shortly after having conceived and started this masterpiece, the great Titian left this life and therefore found himself faced with what he now found it hard to believe: the sacred afterlife; or what made him fall into terror: nothingness. So He knew; but the painting remained unfinished: Palma il Giovane, his pupil, completed it, with extreme discretion towards the work of his master's genius, and handed it down to us, in all its immense spiritual and artistic value, as we still see it today.

© Natalia Dantas