Diana and Actaeon
Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) (About 1488 to 1576) · 1556 to 1559
The young hunter Actaeon, out with his dogs, pushes aside a red curtain and stumbles upon the goddess Diana bathing with her nymphs. He throws up an arm in shock; she pulls a cloth across her body and gives him a look of cold fury. Everyone in the picture reacts differently: one nymph hides behind a pillar, another keeps drying the goddess's foot, a small dog yaps at the intruder. Titian paints the moment before the punishment. Diana will turn Actaeon into a stag and his own hounds will tear him apart, and the deer skull on the pillar above her already hints at his fate.
The painting belongs to the group of mythological pictures, which Titian called poesie, that he made for Philip the Second of Spain. Look at the way the paint is handled: flesh is built up in soft, broken strokes, the water is a few smears of white, and the whole surface seems to shimmer. The rose-gold light, the sumptuous fabrics and the dark sky above the ruined arch show the old Titian at the height of his powers, painting with a freedom that astonished younger artists.
The canvas came to Britain in 1798 with the Orleans collection and hung for two centuries at Bridgewater House and later in Edinburgh on loan. In 2009 the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Gallery in London bought it together for fifty million pounds, and its companion, Diana and Callisto, followed in 2012. The two pictures alternate between the cities on five year terms, so when you see them here you are catching a rotation. Few paintings in Britain carry so much weight of history, or reward so much looking.
Did You Know? Actaeon was later taken up by Lucian Freud, who called the Titian poesie simply the most beautiful pictures in the world.
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