How to Read Paintings: The Assumption of the Virgin by Titian
A perfectly composed work of art that expresses the rapture of the Virgin Mary’s ascent into heaven
This painting features in my book How to Read Paintings, an examination of fifteen of art’s most enthralling images.
The image shows the Virgin Mary being lifted towards heaven. She stands on a rising wave of cloud, and as she enters the realm of God, she opens he arms in rapture.
As a painted description of a soul ascending to heaven, the image brings to life what might otherwise be a difficult theological concept. Beneath her cloud, the physical realm of earthly life is huddled and chaotic: the men in the lower section are surprised, alarmed and in awe. By contrast, the space of heaven is given geometrical elegance, a glowing circle of light where there is no cause for panic but rather a place of serenity.
Titian’s painting of the Assumption of the Virgin, made around 1518, is one of the most famous painted depictions of Mary’s ascent into heaven. He made the work when he was 26 years old or thereabouts. The painting is nearly seven metres high, and hangs above the high altar of the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice.
You don’t have to be a Christian to enjoy this painting; you don’t even need to believe in heaven to understand where the woman on the cloud is going to. Shortly after her death, the Virgin Mary spirit’s emerged from her tomb and was born upwards towards heaven. God is shown as a diagonal cleft in the golden ether. Mary herself stands in a devout pose. Her drapery twists around her as if caught by a breeze, emphasising the animation of her ascent. She stands on bales of thick, doughy cloud, carried upwards by divine cherubs. Below, Titian has more or less omitted the stone tomb and instead makes the terrestrial realm one of robed men: the apostles gathered in awe and lament.
Titian has brilliantly utilised the common convention in art of deifying vertical space, so that the picture grows more sacred as it rises upwards. To this end, the composition is clearly divided into three sections: the earthly realm where the apostles stand; above this the Virgin being borne aloft by the clouds; and above the Virgin, the glowing dominion of God.
From a compositional point of view, this three-part scheme is the most obvious of a complexity of subtle devices the artist has used to bring a sense of music and energy to the image, all of which help to further venerate the Virgin’s persona.
Most elegantly, and most simply of all, the upper half of the painting forms a perfect circle made by the curved edges of the cloud and the rounded head of the panel, at the very centre of which the Virgin’s head is positioned.
Then there is the overall triangular composition, constructed by the two red-robed apostles at the foot of the painting. Follow the lines of their bodies: the triangle reaches up to a peak at the Virgin’s red clothing. This geometric shape guides the eyes from the floor to the heavenly realm and also lends the picture its formal stability and symmetry.
There is more. By following the highlights and lowlights instigated by the shape of the Virgin’s blue shawl, a more subtle spiral shape emerges. It’s not strictly fixed and can be interpreted in various ways. But it is certainly present, and brings with it a different type of activity to the composition and, again, training the eye on the Virgin.
Titian’s overall handling of light and space is masterly, as is his depiction and variety of human forms. Just look at the plethora of cherubs that adorn the cloud, how each one is individualised — singing or playing a musical instrument — yet also blended together in the rising wave of animation.
The tale of the Virgin’s death and subsequent heavenward ascent — supposedly three days later — has its source not in the Gospels but in the apocryphal literature of the 3rd and 4th centuries. Titian painted this image when the cult of the Virgin Mary was at its height, a phenomena that had been gathering pace for several centuries.
The comforting symbolism of the mother-child relationship has obvious appeal, and has its representational roots in many pagan religions, perhaps most notably that of the Egyptian goddess Isis holding her son Horus in her lap. Many ancient religions prospered under the reassuring presence of a mother figure, a Mater Amabilis, which acted as a stabilising force and a familial point of veneration. For the Christian Church, the Virgin Mary emerged as the Purissima or ‘most pure’ of figures.
Debates wrangled through the early history of the church about the exact status of the ‘Mother of God’ — the extent and nature of her divinity — but by the 13th century the Marian cult was firmly part of the Christian outlook.
It was also during the 13th century that the hugely influential Golden Legend appeared, a compendium of traditional stories about the saints and miracle tales, which was widely drawn upon as a source-book by artists of the following centuries. The story of Mary’s assumption was retold and cemented in this book, after which its representation in European art was established beyond question: “And anon the soul came again to the body of Mary, and issued gloriously out of the tomb, and thus was received in the heavenly chamber, and a great company of angels with her.”
The power of Titian’s painting lies in the perfection of its clarity. Every aspect contributes to the veneration of Mary. It is little wonder, then, that this painting won Titian many plaudits and set him on a course to become on of Italy’s greatest painters. He died in 1576 and is buried in the same church where this masterpiece hangs.
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