Images of women, words of men. Beauty in Venice betwen last fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries

Abstract

Images leave messages in our subconsciousness which are left without translation into
words. Images are communicated by avoiding barriers of conscious watchfullness. In order to
evangelize the faithfull Christianity uses the sacred images which have normative symbolic
value and are deliberately used to achieve inconscious persuasion. The dialectic of words and
images has much more significance in Catholic countries than in Protestant ones. The normative
nature of the image of Mary influences on any other women image in Catholic countries and
constitutes the implicit pattern for the self-image that women wish to offer. Meanings of
Tiziano's table “Sacred love and profane love” (Venice, 1515) are discussed. A woman —a
naked one— represents sacred love, whercas the other (the same woman) —a dressed one—
represents profane love. Venus embodies an active erotic aesthetic feminine-motherly form of the sacred, along with a passive chaste theological femine-motherly form of the sacred. The
neoplatonic feminine outlining varies from Florence to Venice.