Painted cycles of mythological subjects were the prerogative of hereditary rulers, and Philip was one of the most powerful who had ever lived. Planned as pendant pairs, Titian’s paintings reveal the forces-power and lust, justice and cruelty, chance and fate-that underpin the foundations of world civilizations and legendary dynasties. He compressed each mythological story into a single, climactic moment picturing the collision of gods and mortals and their cataclysmic consequences.

Titian challenged the written word with the painted image. Inspired by the words of the ancient Roman poet Ovid, the artist called them “poesie,” painted poems, eliciting a comparison between painting and poetry. Titian: Women, Myth & Power explores themes of sexual assault and violence.īetween 15, Titian delivered to Philip the six monumental paintings gathered in this room. Together they help us to reconsider Titian for a new era. Fitzpatrick Façade) and Mary Reid and Patrick Kelley ( The Rape of Europa in the Fenway Gallery) engage with questions of power, agency, and sexuality as relevant today as they were in the Renaissance. Newly commissioned responses by the contemporary artists Barbara Kruger ( Body Language on the Anne H. Scholars and artists share personal insights into individual paintings with audio stops. Portraits of Philip and his older wife, Queen Mary Tudor, help us to imagine their points of view. We invite you to consider Titian’s poesie from multiple perspectives, then and now. Inspired by his work, painters of subsequent centuries-including Peter Paul Rubens and Diego Velázquez-transformed Titian into an icon and shaped the future of painting in his wake. Titian’s relationship with Philip was the most productive of his career, and its artistic legacy endures. Titian created them for Philip between 15, responding to ancient Roman myths, above all through the poetry of Ovid, in majestic color and with unprecedented originality. This exhibition brings together Europa with her five companions, reuniting a legendary series of six mythological paintings called the “poesie,” painted poetries, commissioned by King Philip II of Spain. In 1896, Isabella Stewart Gardner bought the Rape of Europa, which became the most famous Renaissance artwork in America.

Titian was as much a legend in the Gilded Age as he was in his own time. Employed by the Holy Roman Emperor, several princes, two popes, and the city of Venice, he forged a peerless international reputation as Europe’s leading portraitist and master of mythological subjects. Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian, transformed Western art.

The beautiful myth