e as a joy in itself.To complement her dignified demeanour, La Bella wears an amazingly intricate and extravagant blue gown. For a period when women were without a public voice and remained dependant on signs of visual identity such as clothing and jewellery, such a display of finery implies significant wealth and social status. Considering the seductive rendering of the fabric utilising costly lapis lazuli, it is clear Titian desired to present an image of ultimate feminine loveliness. The portrait is free from overt artistic mechanisms or devices – Titian simply defines her through her exceptional yet anonymous beauty - as the title indicates. Clearly for him the concept of feminine beauty could be defined simply as physical attractiveness. She has no attributes or companion to assert specific personal characteristics. According to Renaissance logic, her good looks are obviously the outward manifestation of her inner virtues of mind and soul. Therefore it is clear that the concept of feminine beauty of this time was directly and inextricably linked to pleasing physical appearance, the depiction of which viewers derived great pleasure from. Placed in the social context of the time, this type of portrait portraying unidentified, beautiful women in modern clothing was extremely popular in Venice. Common features which bound these portraits into a genre now labelled as “generic beauty portraits” include the illustration of women with milky alabaster skin, wavy reddish-gold hair, large dark eyes, detailed texturised draping clothing with their figures presented in half or three quarter stance. The combined effect of these different characteristics was to present an‘ideal woman’ – a visual embodiment of the ultimate feminine vixen. Overall the effect was to create an erotic and sensual invitation for viewers to reach out and touch these unattainable images of perfection.Examining portraiture of married ...
