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Titian's "Flaying of Marsyas" in the Archiépiscopal Palace at Kromëriz*

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Titian's Realism and Classicism in the Representation of a Painful Scene: Titian's "Flaying of Marsyas" in the Archiépiscopal Palace at Kromëriz* PHILIPP FEHL The "Flaying of Marsyas" by Titian (fig. 1) has been housed in the palace of the archbishop at Kromeffz ever since the seventeenth cen- tury.1 It is a work that suggests at first glance the mature style of the old Titian, it has an excellent pedigree of ownership (we find it mentioned in the inventory of the famous collection of the Earl of Arundel),2 and yet it has, on the whole, been given scant attention by historians of art. This appears to be due not only to its location off the beaten path of art-scholarly peregrinations, but also to the fact that it presents a scene so conspicuously bloody that it alienates even the rough-and-ready taste of a modern audience. The sight of the two dogs: one lapping up the blood that is streaming to the ground from the body of the victim hanging upside down like an animal in a butcher's shop, and the other ready to pounce on Marsyas, but restrained by a weeping boy; the eagerness of the executioner; and, above all, the fancy of the fiddler playing music to accompany the flaying - all these are elements that * In Memoriam Katerina Reissova. 1 Acquired in 1673 by Bishop Karl Liechtenstein-Castelcorn. For the documen- tary evidence, cf. Antonin Breitenbacher, Dejiny arcibiskupske obrazarny v Kromeriz (Kromeriz, 1925-1927), passim. The picture is at present, for the pur- pose of restoration, in the depot of the National Gallery in Prague. About two years ago, in connection with the restoration of the work which was then already in progress, there appeared (in several languages) a book by Jaromir Neumann, which was accessible to me in its German edition, Tizian: Die Schindung des Marsyas (Prague, Artia, 1962). While my interpretation differs from Dr. Neu- mann's, and to some extent depends on the introduction of evidence he does not consider, I do wish gratefully to acknowledge - as every future writer on the work will have to - my indebtedness to his careful and sensitive study. 2 Bishop Karl Liechtenstein-Castelcorn bought three paintings by Titian (of which two are now lost), together with other paintings, from Franz von Imsten- raed, a nephew of the famous collector, Eberhard Jabach. A number of Imsten- raed pictures can be traced back to the collection of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, and the inventory of the Arundel paintings lists a "Marsias Scortigato" by Titian. Cf. Neumann, op. cit., p. 9, and Lionel Cust, "Notes on the Collec- tions Formed by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, K. G.", The Burlington Magazine, XX (1911), p. 284. 1388 Philipp Fehl seem designed to promote the happiness of characters in a cartoon by Charles Addams rather than the delight of a lover of the works of Titian. And, indeed, until recently, such discussions of the picture as there were restricted themselves primarily to the study of the brush strokes and the composition of the work.3 If one faced the subject matter at all, it was either to reject it as unworthy of Titian or, more often, to see in all this bloodiness not the punishment of Marsyas, but his martyr- dom.4 The victim of the scene, in other words, was turned into its hero. Moving as such an interpretation may be, it is simply not compatible with the nature of the subject as it presented itself to a Renaissance public. The ancient accounts of the story of Marsyas and its Renais- sance interpretations usually allow us, and even invite us, to find his fate pitiable, but they also take it for granted that the cruelty of Apollo derives from the wrath of an offended god and that Marsyas has brought his fate upon himself - either by impudence or, at least, by a lack of prudence and humility in the presence of a god.5 A modern viewer must learn to face the fact that Titian, just like Ovid, whose description of the scene he chiefly follows, is on the side of Apollo.6 A facile, but horribly monstrous, solution of our problem 3 For a list of relevant publications, cf. Neumann, op. cit., "Literaturnachweis", following p. 31. 4 For a comparison of Marsyas with St. Andrew, cf. Otto Benesch, "Die Fuerst- erzbischoefliche Gemaeldegalerie in Kremsier", Pantheon, I (1928), p. 23, and Neumann, op. cit., p. 10. For rejections of the painting as a work by Titian, cf. Theodor Hetzer in Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kuenstler von der Antike bis zur Cegenwart, vol. 34 (1940), p. 167, and Frederick Hartt, Giulio Romano (New Haven, 1958), vol. I, p. Ill, n. 8. 5 For a list of the antique literary accounts and references to the story, cf. the entry "Marsyas" (by G. Burckhardt), Paulys Real-Encyclopaedie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Neue Bearbeitung, vol. XIV (Stuttgart, 1930), cols. 1987- 1993. Exceptions to the position generally taken are found in Lucian in a burlesque reference (Dialog. Deorum xvi. 2), and Diodorus Siculus (iii. 58-59 and v. 75. 3), who says that Apollo later was so ashamed of having punished Marsyas excessively that he broke the strings of his lyre and for a time would have nothing to do with its music. Ovid (Met. vi. 382-401) presents the story as part of a cycle of stories of human beings who showed contempt for the gods and were punished for it. Cf. his own statement, Metamorphoses vi. 313-318. See also his Ibis 343, 551. In Regius' commentary on the Metamorphoses Marsyas is considered guilty of "audacia" (ed. Venice, 1565, p. 131). Andrea Alciati speaks of Marsyas' "arro- gantia" and links his punishment with those of Niobe, Thamyris, and Arachne (Emblema LXVII: "Arrogantia", Emblemata, ed. Padua, 1661, pp. 296-301). 6 Mythological paintings by Titian which represent punishments comparable to that of Marsyas are "The Death of Acteon", "Diana and Callisto", and more remotely, "Sisyphus" and "Tityus". If I am not mistaken, the "Contest of Apollo and Marsyas" appears also (in the form of a classical relief) in the background The Representation of a Painful Scene 1389 would be to assume that in being shocked by the work, we are victims of sentimental delusions and that the horror of the work speaks strongly to the strong - that, in other words, it was made for a tougher genera- tion. Such cases have been construed, on occasion, in the "defence" of scenes of slaughter in Shakespeare, or even in Homer,7 but if, indeed, greatness in art rose from a disdain for or lack of sensibility, we should not wish for greatness in art. Fortunately, we know better, thanks to the inspired teaching in poetry by men like Gilbert Murray, who taught us again to make a distinction in essence between the compassionate representation of death and sorrow as we find it in the Iliad and the mere excitement of slaughter that we often find in the so-called "national" epics,8 and thanks, too, to the example of Thomas Masaryk whose life of Titian's portrait of a man (the so-called "Mendoza") in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence (Hans Tietze, Titian, Paintings and Drawings (Vienna, 1937), fig. 192). The figure on the right, who, (according to Tietze's description, ibid., p. 323) plays the lyre, would be Apollo, and the figure seated dejectedly on a rock, the defeated Marsyas. His flute lies on the ground before him. (For a comparable representation of the seated Marsyas, note the "Medici Carnelian", note 14 infra., and the relevant references given by Karl Hadaczek, "Marsyas",Jahreshefte des oesterreichischen archaeologischen Institutes, X (1907), pp. 314-317, and Rhys Carpenter, "Observations on Familiar Statuary in Rome", Memoirs of the Amer- ican Academy in Rome, XVII (New York, 1961), pp. 84-91). Titian's purpose in presenting the portrait figure directly in front of such a scene may have been to show that the sitter is a partisan and defender of the moral and musical prin- ciples represented by Apollo. Apollo and Marsyas may also be shown on the much-discussed relief on the base of St. Peter's throne in Titian's "Votive Picture of Jacopo Pesaro" in Antwerp (Tietze, op. cit., pl. 1). They would be the first two figures to the left of the center of the relief. For a bibliography of different explanations of this interesting relief, cf. Eugene B. Cantelupe, "Titian's Sacred and Profane Love's Re-examined", The Art Bulletin, vol. 46 (1964), p. 222, notes 23-27 7 For a sensitive and almost regretful (and therefore rare) recommendation of such a view, cf. C. A. Sainte-Beuve, "Qu'est-ce qu'un classique?", Causeries du Lundi Oct. 21 (1850), Paris, n.d. (Gamier Frères, 3rd éd.), vol. III, pp. 45-47. On the origins of the attitude, cf. the thoughtful and richly documented exposi- tion by Karl Borinski, Die Antike in Poetik und Kusttheorie (Leipzig, 1914), vol. II, pp. 198-264. See also A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, Culture, a Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (New York, 1952), esp. pp. 19-62. Ernst Robert Curtius notes the following statement by Simon Pelloutier (1694- 1757), a French Protestant clergyman in Berlin, as the first harbinger of the new persuasion: "L'ignorance et le mépris des lettres sont la véritable origine de la poésie", Europaeische Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter (Bern, 1948), pp. 397-398. See also pp. 326-327, ibid. On the position of Diderot, who despised squeamishness but detested brutality, and on his view of the sublime in art, cf.
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