Titian Today: Body Language
 

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Here in Boston we are being treated to a rare collection of Titian's work (the poesie) on display at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I'm going tomorrow to soak it in. Here is an excellent article from the NYT that puts his works in today's moral chaos/context with clarity and thought-provoking detail.

I'm excited! I'll come back to tell.

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It was impressive in that Titian's use of color and capture of a moment are impeccable. The luminous smooth white skin of nude women was loud.

But I had a slow realization, encircled as I was by the six paintings, that the age of helpless nude women being saved by bold men is over in my eyes. I also read extensively about the patronage behind the paintings and became turned off again. Men. I've had a bit of a revelation, after all these years.
These are the times that try our souls (to paraphrase Paine). I'm trying. Indifference and ignorance are to be scattered wherever they are found. How that's done is the chaos of change. Good morning.

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Jim,

My quick reply vanished. I wondered if your reaction to Titian's painting was only now beginning and whether we'd find some of it in your poems.

I'd be interested in reading more about your impressions, if you decide to expand.

Thanks for sharing,
~mignon

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Mignon, I am interested in poems that are sensual but not sexual. Perhaps a hint, since it's impossible to separate the sensual from the sexual, but only in the deepest way possible.
Titian is not on my radar typically, but the Poesie exhibit of his six paintings is currently here in Boston and I just had to go. The exhibit was in a medium-sized room with the six paintings hung in pairs. I was struck by the luminescent white flesh. Not necessarily in a good way — just struck by how it dominated the room.

What I did realize, as I sat and stood, stepped back and moved in close, gazing and reading, thinking, was that these paintings, seen through today's eyes, are exploitive of the female body. They were works completed primarily for the pleasure of Phillip of Spain I believe. I felt both drained and strangely stronger for realizing.

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