Titian's Vision Of Women Beauty - Love - Poetry

Exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 5 October 2021 - 16 January 2022

In Venice, shortly after 1500, Titian began to produce paintings in which women were depicted in a new light. Inspired by contemporary love poetry and literature, Titian and his contemporaries - including Palma Vecchio, Lorenzo Lotto, Paris Bordone, Jacopo Tintoretto and Paolo Veronese - began to create poetic, sensual, idealizing (and ground-breaking) depictions of women that inspired European painting for centuries.

This exhibition catalogue examines the Venetian image of women in the context of sixteenth-century ideals and contemporary society. The works range from half-length likenesses of Venetian beauties to prestigious portraits; from images of couples of lovers, heroines, saints and women of letters and poetesses to fascinating mythological and allegorical figures. Between Eros and enigma, virtue and lust, heroism and seduction, all the power and strength of women emerges in the ambiguity of gesture and their beauty, indicating their pivotal role in world events.