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After Titian by Ben Shahn / American Art
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After Titian

1959 Ben Shahn Born: Kovno, Lithuania 1898 Died: New York, New York 1969 tempera on fiberboard 53 1/2 x 30 1/2 in. (136.0 x 77.5 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation 1986.6.78 Smithsonian American Art Museum
4th Floor, Luce Foundation Center



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After Titian



“Personal style, be it that of Michelangelo, or that of Tintoretto, or of Titian or of Giotto has always been that personal rapport which has developed between an artist and his medium.” Shahn, The Biography of a Painting, 1966


This painting was inspired by Allegory of Prudence by the Venetian artist Titian (about 1485-1576). The male heads represent the three stages of life: youth, maturity, and old age, and the three-headed beast of wolf, lion, and dog symbolizes prudence. The figures in Titian’s painting appear to show the artist as a bearded elder, his son as a dark-haired middle-aged man, and his cousin and heir as a proud youth. Shahn was in his sixties when he created this image, and he may have thought of himself as the old figure looking to the left, reflecting on the different periods of his own life. The middle-aged face looking out at the viewer perhaps represents a moment in his past when he was mature enough to know about the ways of the world, but still young enough to show optimism for the opportunities ahead.

For more information about this work visit the Luce Foundation Center.


Keywords

Fantasy - animal

Figure group - male - bust

Figure - fragment - hand

painting

paint - tempera

fiberboard

About Ben Shahn

Born: Kovno, Lithuania 1898 Died: New York, New York 1969

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Ben Shahn

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