by Jon Lackman | 23 October 2006 | Museums, Renaissance
Titian’s portraits of the powerful are up at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris (catalog from Skira). Titien, le pouvoir en face is “a magnificent introduction” to Titian’s work, in spite of its odd title, writes Gérard-Georges Lemaire. In one picture, Charles Quint, “no beauty,” is “literally sublimated by Titian.” Lemaire also praises the je-ne-sais-quoi of Titian’s rendering of his sitters’ hands, and also his use of the color black characteristic of religious orders and the nobility, in contributing to his mise en scène of power.
