Titian Made Visual Poetry of Eroticism and Power

With all that has transpired in the world since the beginning of the year, what can the Old Masters possibly tell us about our own lives now? As lockdown measures are eased and museums and galleries begin the cautious process of reopening to the public, one of the cultural highlights now on view is the National Gallery exhibition in London of “Titian: Love, Desire, Death,” which reunites the mythological cycle known as the poesie. These “poetical pictures,” as Titian desc