Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
A monogram instead of an instrument
Bernardino of Siena is named by three letters. His attribute is a tablet or disc carrying the monogram IHS inside rays, held up in front of him, and it is one of the very few signs in this system that is a piece of writing rather than a thing. Two more attach to him: three bishops' mitres set on the ground, standing for offices the tradition says he refused, and a face so consistently drawn as gaunt and toothless that it works as an identifier by itself.
What the record holds
The entry is dated 1531 and gives Private Collection as its location. No dimensions are recorded. It is filed under male portraiture and Religion, with High Renaissance as the style and Italian as the nationality; the measured colour family is neutral.
The spelling the record keeps
The title here reads Bernadine, and it is the only title in this catalogue that carries the name in any form. Spelling drift of that kind is ordinary in a collection assembled from many sources, and it matters for the same reason attributes do: a name that arrives in three variants is a name that cannot be searched reliably, which is precisely the problem a painted object solves. A tablet with three letters on it is legible whether or not anyone can spell the man holding it.
Sources
4 references- Peale, Titian Ramsay — Getty ULAN
American painter and naturalist, 1799-1885
- Titian — Wikipedia
Tiziano Vecellio (Italian: [titˈtsjaːno veˈtʃɛlljo]; c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( TISH-ən), was an Italian Renaissance painter. The most important artist of Renaissance Venetian p
- Titian — Getty ULAN
Venetian painter, ca. 1488-1576
- Titian - Saint Bernadine — Wikimedia Commons
High-resolution image of the work, hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
