Explore the Analysis of this artwork, Sisyphus (Titian).
Georg Gronau imagines the Pieza de las Furias as it must once have been:We can still imagine the general effect of the room when the pictures adorned it. Four colossal single figures (each picture measures more than two metres square), superhuman in form, struggling in torment, with a grand gloomy background suited to their dark-coloured bodies. Sisyphus is trying to push his rock up the mountain height; cliffs encircle him, and a whirlwind blows the flames of the underworld up around him. Prometheus lies stretched out over masses of mountain rock, of which he seems to have almost become a part; one arm hangs down over the cliff, his body is shrinking and writhing. It is as if Titian in these human forms would symbolise the struggles of the forces of nature. In drawing the masses of rock the remembrance of the mountains of his early home no doubt assisted him.
Charles Ricketts describes the two surviving pictures by Titian:In these Titian reverts to the bold foreshortening of his Santo Spirito Ceilings. Both have been darkened by the smoke of one of those countless fires which have devastated the collections of the Spanish house, the colour-scheme of the 'Prometheus' now suggesting the rust of iron. This superb work anticipates the more broken and febrile handling of the following decade, and without documentary evidence I should have been inclined to ascribe it to a later period.
underworld Georg Gronau Sisyphus Santo Spirito Ceilings Titian Charles Ricketts