A medical interpretation of colour in the late works of Titian

L. C. Álvaro González
Neurosciences and History 2025;13(1): 1-18

Article type: ORIGINAL

AUTHOR

L. C. Álvaro González
Department of Neurology. Hospital Universitario Basurto, Bilbao, Spain.
Department of Neurosciences. UPV/EHU, Leioa, Bizkaia, Spain.

ABSTRACT

Introduction and objectives. Titian (1490-1576) was a Renaissance painter of the Venetian school, rivalling Michelangelo and Raphael of the Roman school. He was a master of the use of colour. In his late period, his style took on a new dimension, with his works losing the vitality, contrasts, and volumes he created with colour in his early works. His late works display a reduced chromatic palette, with a tendency to use ochres and earthy and reddish tones. Blues, greens, and whites barely appear, or show a striking change in tonality. These colours correspond to short wavelengths, the part of the spectrum affected by cataracts. This is our working hypothesis.

Material and methods. The works of Titian held at the Prado (49 paintings) and Thyssen museums (4 paintings), and in general catalogues, were reviewed. Having observed the late change in style, I focused on the works from his later years, 1562-1576, and selected five that are representative of the working hypothesis: The crowning with thorns (1570), Flaying of Marsyas (ca. 1570-1576), Pietà (ca. 1576), The penitent Saint Jerome (ca. 1575), and The burial of Christ (1572). The following aspects of colour were analysed: brightness and luminosity; polychromy; number of colours and shades; contribution of colour to shape and volume; and atmosphere and ambient light. With the exception of Flaying of Marsyas and Pietà, the other three works are replicas of earlier pieces, enabling appreciation of the stylistic change in paintings of the same subject and general outline.

Results. All five works show a tendency to an oligochromatic palette, with predominance of earthy tones, ochres, yellows, and shades of red. The change in the whites (especially in Christ’ s body in the Pietà) is striking, with a washed-out appearance that, nonetheless, heightens the work’s mystery, elevating the piece. The presence of short-wavelength colours is much reduced; paint is applied in thick brushstrokes or by hand, and the ambience is muted, gloomier, and more sinister. Skies and vegetation are simplified, as blues and greens are absent. This tendency is broken in The burial of Christ: compared with the earlier version, the general scene is preserved, but the colours, portraits, and anatomy are unnatural, no doubt the work of Titian’s students. The late Titian, with the stylistic change in colours probably imposed by limitations in his visual perception, nonetheless achieves once again a style that is unique, sublime, steeped in mystery and questions, as we might expect of the master, whose genius enabled him to overcome the limitations imposed on him, in this case affecting his perception.

Claude Monet is the most widely studied case of an artist with cataracts, which in this case were documented. Analysis of the change in Monet’s style and use of colour reveals a clear parallel with Titian. Monet’s cataract was hypermature, with a tempestuous progression after three interventions; Titian’s was very probably a senile capsular form that, had he not been a painter, would not have impacted his colour vision in day-to-day life. Finally, Rembrandt also shows a simplification of colour and geometric forms in the drafting of his final self-portraits, although in all likelihood this was the result of poverty and a lack of resources, an external limitation that he was able to overcome.

KEYWORDS

Titian, late Titian, colour, cataract, painting, medicine

Neurosciences and History 2025;13(1): 1-18