In sixteenth-century Venice, paintings could evoke the same reactions as people; they were revered and loved but also hated and destroyed. The Venetians identified the paintings with the people depicted themselves. “The current impact of, for example, cartoons may be better understood in this way”, Elsje van Kessel assumes.
In the theatrical society that was Venice, it was all about playing the social role for which one was born as convincingly as possible. People managed to enhance their public appearance with paintings. Van Kessel discovered in contemporary sources that paintings function in social situations as active participants with human traits.
If such a painting was smeared, it was as if the person himself had been smeared. Van Kessel:“It shows the sensitivities well. We tend to think that a picture is just a picture, but it touches the person very directly.”
Beaten, kissed and caressed
In the Venetian culture of play and conventions, paintings could sometimes take over the roles of people and thus become persons. Paintings received visitors and attracted pilgrims; they healed and saved people; they made money; people fell in love with them; they provoked aggression and became victims of violence; they worked as agents of artists, noble families and royal courts; they were beaten, kissed and caressed.
Art historian Van Kessel not only used art-historical methods, but also looked at the sources from a broader, anthropological perspective. That was necessary to let go of modern Western ideas about what painting is. Van Kessel:'You can't really understand paintings if you don't know anything about the original functioning in society.'
Paintings portrayed their roles in a similar way to people; both paintings and people showed very conventional behavior and adhered to their familiar scenarios of church, literature and the Venetian state. In fact, painting served religious, social and political life. Paintings were tools in the hands of religious institutions, governments, and families; and artists usually were too.
Social lives
The artist was not always important or even visible. On the other hand, there is one artist who largely single-handedly determined the discussion about the lifelike painting:Titian. In the course of the sixteenth century he is increasingly regarded as a divine creator, who does not smear his canvases with paint but with flesh.
Paintings with a complex and thriving social life mainly occurred where political, religious, social and cultural interests of various parties converged. At the same time, paintings were hailed as artistic achievements. Van Kessel therefore does not want to claim that the Venetians systematically mistook paintings for living beings in a biological sense.
On a social level, however, the paintings were alive. Van Kessel:'Paintings in the Venice of the Cinquecento had social lives:they were part of social networks.'