Venus and Adonis
Titian and workshop (about 1488 to 1576) · about 1555 to 1560
The goddess of love has thrown her arms around a young hunter and is trying to hold him back, twisting her whole body toward him while he looks down at her with polite impatience. His hounds strain at their leashes, eager to be off. Cupid dozes under a tree with his bow hung out of reach, which tells you love has lost this argument. Adonis will go hunting, a boar will kill him, and Venus will mourn. Titian paints the moment when everything is still possible and already decided.
The pose of Venus seen from behind, with her back a broad expanse of warm flesh and her head turned so that we see her face in profile, was one of Titian's most admired inventions, and he and his studio repeated the composition many times for different patrons. Look at how loosely the paint is handled in the landscape and the dogs, with quick strokes of the brush and even the fingers, compared with the more careful flesh. Titian was in his late sixties by now and painted with a freedom that shocked younger artists. The stormy light breaking through the clouds echoes the emotion of the scene.
The first version was sent to Philip the Second of Spain in fifteen fifty four and hangs in the Prado; this canvas, with variations in the landscape and the sleeping Cupid, is one of several later versions from the workshop with Titian's own hand evident in the main figures. It came to the Getty in nineteen ninety two and is the museum's most important Venetian painting. Notice the overturned golden vase in the foreground, a hint of the tears to come.
Did You Know? Titian called these mythological pictures poesie, painted poems, and wrote to Philip that he had shown Venus from behind so the king could enjoy a different view from the other paintings in the set.
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