On Love

— Yuuri, starting today, I’m your coach. I’ll make you win the Grand Prix Final!

Viktor Nikiforov — to Yuuri Katsuki (Yuri on Ice)

I. Amor sacro e Amor profano

At just a little distance from the busy and hustling Roman centre and all its tourist packed attractions, hidden in the pleasant shadows of the Villa Borghese park, lies Galleria Borghese — a quieter art museum that brims with some of the most spectacular masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. Among the treasures of Cardinal Scipione Borghese’s private collection — the historical nucleus of the present-day exhibition — one finds Titian’s massive Amor sacro e amor profano (Sacred and Profane Love, 1514 or 1515): one of the most controversial and enigmatic masterpieces of the Venetian Renaissance.

This painting celebrates the 1514 marriage between a high-ranking Venetian officer Nicolò Aurelio and his much younger Paduan bride Laura Bagarotto, both identified by art historians through their respective coats of arms in the background. The plot that the painting tries to narrate, as well as the two female protagonists that immediately attract our attention — one fully clothed, another nude (or the same protagonist in two forms) — are not so easily identifiable, however: from the 1693 inventory of Galleria Borghese’s possessions, when the first version of the current title first emerged (L’Amore divino et Amore profano) all the way up to the present day, there have been numerous attempts at linking the plot and the two main figures to various literary and philosophical works of the period, and at providing moral, philosophical, allegorical or matrimonial readings of Titian’s enigmatic masterpiece. This debate is still far from over.

Fast-forwarding a few centuries to the present day — specifically, to December 2022 — and moving north from Rome to Turin, I found myself thinking about Titian’s painting in the middle of an important figure skating event: the Grand Prix Final. It was Shoma Uno’s turn to skate, and it was his free program choreographed by Kenji Miyamoto to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Air (from the Orchestral Suite no. 3) and Johann Adolph Hasse’s Mea tormenta, properate! (from the oratorio Sanctus Petrus et Sancta Maria Magdalena) that inspired the analogy — as well as my search for answers.

While the analogy may well seem completely ungrounded and random, there are at least three motives — three apologiae — that I can offer here in defence of my thought process. First, what struck me was their shared duality: as with Titian’s two forms of love, sacred and profane, that divide the painting into two distinctly different parts, Shoma’s program also consists of two opposing halves (with Bach’s Air and Hasse’s Mea tormenta) that must have been designed to represent two different states, or forms, of…. well, something. In other words, there is a structural parallel here, albeit not particularly exceptional in itself (two-part structures are too common to be helpful).

Second, there is a curious Venetian link here. Hasse’s oratorio Sanctus Petrus et Sancta Maria Magdalena was originally conceived for (probably in the 1730s), and definitely performed in (much later, in 1758), one of the four Great Venetian Ospedali — namely, L’Ospedale degli Incurabili (the hospital for the incurable).

These ‘hospitals’ (quickly turned into orphanages) were brimming with musical life throughout their history, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries. L’Ospedale della Pietà, for instance — another ospedale grande — became famous in the music history because of its long-standing association with Antonio Vivaldi (to whose music, too, Shoma Uno skated in the past). And Titian was, of course, a Venetian painter par excellence — perhaps, the Venetian painter of the Italian Renaissance. Again, the link is not particularly exceptional or strong, but it was enough to spark my imagination and to support this (dubious, perhaps) analogy.

Finally, there is one last — and even more convoluted — reason why Titian’s Amor sacro e Amor profano became linked in my mind to Shoma’s program. It has to do with the actual ‘content’ of Titian’s painting, or rather with one particular interpretative thread in the complex web of interpretations that have been advanced in Titian’s studies since the end of the 17th century: the two forms of love, sacro (sacred, divine) and profano (profane, ‘down-to-earth’, erotic). It reminded me of philosophical disputes on ‘forms of love’, specifically on Eros and Agape — forms of erotic and sacrificial love — disputes that had originated in the Antiquity, but were still very much felt throughout the Renaissance period.

This, in turn, reminded me of a well-known anime series called Yuri on ice that bears a lot of chilling resemblances to some bits of Shoma Uno’s career. At the beginning of that series, a figure skating duel of a sort is being arranged between Yuuri Katsuki (the main protagonist — a Japanese figure skater struggling with his motivation in the later stages of his career) and Yuri Plisetsky (an up-and-coming Russian star). Whoever skates better in the duel, wins — and gets to be trained by a figure skating legend, Viktor Nikiforov. They skate to two completely different arrangements of the same music, in which their goal is to show as best they could the two opposing forms of love: Eros and Agape. These programs are, in fact, accordingly called On Love: Eros and On Love: Agape. And they both — in fact, all programs that are featured in this series, not just these two — were choreographed by none other than Kenji Miyamoto, the creator of Shoma Uno’s Air/Mea tormenta. 

And so, because of all this, the analogy between Shoma’s program and Titian’s painting, in this last case mediated by a Yuri on ice reference, began to take a more concrete shape in my mind.

Now, I want to be very clear here: I do not think there is necessarily any kind of real relationship between the two. That is, I do not think that Kenji Miyamoto was inspired specifically by this painting when he was designing and creating his program for Shoma. Also, I do not necessarily believe that Shoma’s program is specifically about Eros and Agape, or about any forms of love, or even about Love more generally. After all, he is not skating to two different arrangements of the same music (which is the case in Yuri on ice), and there are no obvious choreographic parallels between Shoma’s Air/Mea tormenta and the two other programs I have just mentioned. These are all just free associations and analogies — and likely nothing but figments of my imagination.

Enough disclaimers and excuses though — it is time to delve deeper into the program itself!

II. Eros and Agape

The contrast between the two parts of Air/Mea tormenta manifests itself in many ways. The musical switch (from Bach to Hasse) in the middle of the program is clearly reflected in the choreography: in how the skater moves and what shapes he creates with his body. There are at least two meaningful arcs that bridge the two parts together and show some of their similarities and differences: one is between the opening and final poses of the entire program, another is between the two endings: the ChSq at the end of the 1st part and the StSq at the end of the 2nd. Let us start from the former.

The first structural arc becomes obvious when the opening and final positions are put side by side: in both, the skater is kneeling on the ice, with his gaze clearly directed downwards — to the ice. There is also a curious symmetry in the position of Shoma’s legs: the opening position is supported by the left knee and the right blade, the final — by the right knee and the left blade. The same idea of reversal, although not literally, can be seen in the shapes created by Shoma’s arms — at the beginning, the skater’s arms are very ‘balletic’ and round, and his movements are smooth and fluid,

whereas the final position is all about sharp angles and quick, but very well defined, movements.

In fact, this contrast manifests itself throughout both parts of the program, not just their opening and final positions.

But what do the starting and the final positions ‘mean’? Are there any iconographic parallels (for instance, in the painting or sculpture) that can potentially help us to decode those meanings, or at least draw any specific analogies? Perhaps there are, even if unintentional. The positioning of the skater, particularly at the beginning, as well as the direction of his gaze, has always reminded me of… Narcissus. More specifically, of Narcissus kneeling in front of the spring/pond and falling in love with his own reflection.

As with Titian’s painting, this analogy, too, is not perfect, but some similarities are quite striking: Narcissus is often represented with a somewhat similar asymmetrical position of his legs, where one leg would kneel on the ground and support the body, whereas the other would be just dragged behind, or extended, or ‘tucked in’ under the body in one way or another. And, of course, Narcissus’s gaze always turns to his reflection in the water — that is, downwards.

While at least the general contour of the opening position can be compared to Narcissus’ basic iconography, the final position is still a completely different animal, despite all the structural similarities between the two. The leg reversal that I mentioned earlier is quite important here, but even more important is the cross-like shape created by the arms — something that can be found in Christian-related iconography. This comes as no surprise, given that the entire 2nd part of Shoma’s program is based on the Apostle Peter’s aria Mea tormenta, properate! («My sufferings, hurry up!»), where at one point Peter openly and unambiguously asks for the Cross (=he wants to be crucified): crucem quaero, crucem date, volo mori («I ask for the Cross, give me the Cross, I want to die!»).

In many ways then, the final position ‘defies’, or negates, the sensual narcissistic opening: by the structural reversal (in the positioning of the legs), as well as the contrasts in shapes and styles of movement. Curiously, the closest parallel that I can offer with regards to the cross-like arm shape in the final position is a depiction of someone who represents the very act of defiance and negation, even if in its evil form: Alexander Cabanel’s Fallen Angel (1847).

The second arc — that between the ChSq at the end of the 1st part and the StSq at the end of the 2nd — shows how the same contrasts and reversals work on a much larger scale. The ChSq consists of a series of expressive, quasi-sculptural, poses: all very open and sensual, and all very smooth and seamless as far as the quality of movement is concerned. The StSq, on the contrary, is extremely dynamic and sharp — the movement never ‘freezes’ in quasi-sculptural shapes and forms (as in ChSq), it never stops. And as in the opening and final poses that I have just compared above, the expressive posing of the ChSq is very sensual and ‘narcissistic’,

whereas the more openly passionate movements of the StSq often seem to create shapes and gestures that defy or restrain, sometimes literally, the sensuality explored prior.

Where is Eros then, and where is Agape? One last common paradox that may link Shoma’s program to Titian’s Amor sacro e Amor profano is precisely this ambiguity: what at first glance seems ‘sacred’ and ‘divine’ in Titian (the clothed woman on the left) ends up being the sensual and erotic side of Amor profano, and vice versa — the naked woman, which we may naively link to Amor profano, is actually the representation of the divine love, Amor sacro. The painting thus defies our initial expectations.

So does Shoma’s program. There, too, it may initially seem that the first part, performed to Bach’s serene Air, must represent Agape, the platonic sacrificial Love, whereas the more passionate second part to Hasse’s Mea tormenta is the Eros. And yet both the iconography of the two parts and the text of the second tell us otherwise: the slow, languid movements of the 1st, as well as a few Narcissus-like poses at its beginning and end, are full of sensuality and eroticism, whereas the second part, even though undoubtedly more dynamic and passionate, can be viewed as representative of the kind of sacrificial love that made Apostle Peter beg for his Cross.

III. Surrounded by Love (Conclusion)

Is this program about the erotic and sacrificial kinds of love akin to Titian’s Amor sacro e Amor profano? No, not necessarily — this is just one possible reading of this program’s structure and choreographic ‘content’. It can be about Love, or about budding/sprouting of plants and flowers, as explained by the choreographer himself in one of the interviews — although, taking Narcissus’ transformation into account, this analogy is not completely devoid of erotic undertones and narcissistic imagery either — or it can be about something else altogether. What we have here is an (objectively present) 2-part structure filled with geometric shapes and lines created by the skater’s body — a carcass of a sort, to which we add ‘meat’ and onto which we project our meanings, as well as feelings and emotions. My reading is, of course, just one of many, and likely not the most accurate one.

I want to end this short hermeneutic foray into Shoma’s program by saying that, whether Eros and Agape are present in this particular program or not, and whether Titian’s painting specifically was relevant for Kenji Miyamoto’s creative process or not, this program definitely radiates Love in many, many obvious ways. In fact, Shoma’s later career more generally, without any doubt, does precisely that. No one expressed it better than Stéphane Lambiel, Shoma’s coach.

I think he has a lot of people around that love him – and that gives him this aura. Because of all the love that he gets from his environment – he’s a very lovable person – I think it gives him harmony to move like that, full of love and passion. 

Source

And this is perhaps yet another reason why, in the midst of the Grand prix final, while sitting on a hard concrete bench in the Palavela rink, I found myself thinking about Titian’s Amor sacro e Amor profano — why all this time that Shoma was skating his free program, I kept thinking about Love.