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Simply the Most Beautiful Paintings in the World
Warning: naked people
Also, if you're like me, you can't help thinking about Dan Akroyd.
Titian Comes Together
SIX MASTERPIECES THAT TITIAN PAINTED FOR PHILIP II OF SPAIN HAVE BEEN REUNITED FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE 16TH CENTURY.
Critic's Notebook
Simply the Most Beautiful Paintings in the World
By Sebastian Smee and Joanne Lee
Updated Aug. 19 at 10:00 a.m.
Originally published Aug. 19, 2021
BOSTON — “Flesh,” said Willem de Kooning, “is the reason oil paint was invented.” Four hundred years before de Kooning, Titian was the first to make that axiom seem true. He rendered bodies more convincingly than any painter before him. Softening outlines, he set smooth, thinly painted passages against textured impasto (paint that stands out from the surface) and laid multiple glazes over his painted brushstrokes so that his complex colors appeared as if seen through tinted glass.
Still, why would a display of just six Titian paintings at a small New England museum qualify as the art event of the year, and possibly the decade?
It’s not just because Titian was the greatest painter Italy ever produced or because the six were painted for his most important patron, Philip II of Spain. It’s because they are arguably his boldest, most beautiful works; because even though they were made to hang together, they have not been physically united since the 16th century and because the exhibition, “Titian: Women, Myth & Power,” won’t be repeated in our lifetimes: The barriers to doing so — cost, logistics, legal restrictions and the fragility of the works themselves — are simply too great. The show opened in London before traveling to Madrid and is now at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — the final and only U.S. venue — through Jan. 2.
“Titian: Women, Myth & Power” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, through Jan. 2.
{snip}
About this story
Design and development by Joanne Lee. Copy editing by Sue Doyle. Photo research by Kelsey Ables.
Sebastian Smee
Follow https://twitter.com/SebastianSmee
Sebastian Smee is a Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic at The Washington Post and the author of “The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals and Breakthroughs in Modern Art." He has worked at the Boston Globe, and in London and Sydney for the Daily Telegraph (U.K.), the Guardian, the Spectator, and the Sydney Morning Herald.
SIX MASTERPIECES THAT TITIAN PAINTED FOR PHILIP II OF SPAIN HAVE BEEN REUNITED FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE 16TH CENTURY.
Critic's Notebook
Simply the Most Beautiful Paintings in the World
By Sebastian Smee and Joanne Lee
Updated Aug. 19 at 10:00 a.m.
Originally published Aug. 19, 2021
BOSTON — “Flesh,” said Willem de Kooning, “is the reason oil paint was invented.” Four hundred years before de Kooning, Titian was the first to make that axiom seem true. He rendered bodies more convincingly than any painter before him. Softening outlines, he set smooth, thinly painted passages against textured impasto (paint that stands out from the surface) and laid multiple glazes over his painted brushstrokes so that his complex colors appeared as if seen through tinted glass.
Still, why would a display of just six Titian paintings at a small New England museum qualify as the art event of the year, and possibly the decade?
It’s not just because Titian was the greatest painter Italy ever produced or because the six were painted for his most important patron, Philip II of Spain. It’s because they are arguably his boldest, most beautiful works; because even though they were made to hang together, they have not been physically united since the 16th century and because the exhibition, “Titian: Women, Myth & Power,” won’t be repeated in our lifetimes: The barriers to doing so — cost, logistics, legal restrictions and the fragility of the works themselves — are simply too great. The show opened in London before traveling to Madrid and is now at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — the final and only U.S. venue — through Jan. 2.
“Titian: Women, Myth & Power” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, through Jan. 2.
{snip}
About this story
Design and development by Joanne Lee. Copy editing by Sue Doyle. Photo research by Kelsey Ables.
Sebastian Smee
Follow https://twitter.com/SebastianSmee
Sebastian Smee is a Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic at The Washington Post and the author of “The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals and Breakthroughs in Modern Art." He has worked at the Boston Globe, and in London and Sydney for the Daily Telegraph (U.K.), the Guardian, the Spectator, and the Sydney Morning Herald.
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