Titian's 'Venus of Urbino'

Rating:
Summary: Titian's greatest work?
Review: Editor Rona Goffen has done a superb job anthologizing some of the most insightful scholarship surrounding one of the most impressive works of the Western cannon. Goffen (Rutgers), an expert on Titian's Venetian milieu, has carefully selected excerpts from some of the finest contemporary scholarship including such prominent names as T.J. Clark (Berkley), Carlo Ginzburg (UCLA) and David Rosand (Columbia). This collection of essays seeks to place the Venus in its social context by focusing on gender roles of sixteenth-century Venice. This discourse includes a broad discussion of the role of women in both marriage and as courtesan.

Ginzburg offers an insightful study of Titian's relationship to sixteenth-century sexual codes, focusing on his relationship to Ovid.

Rosand deals with the question of genre with regard to the reclining Venus which becomes so important in Titian's art after the Urbino painting.

Arasse focuses on a semiotic reading of the painting, while Pardo and Goffen both try to contextualize Venus's sexuality.

T.J. Clark's chapter, which is taken from his book The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers (Princeton, 1984), offers a reflection on Manet's Olympia and its significant references toward the Venus of Urbino.

This book is absolutely wonderful! It is rare to find such an insightful anthology of critical that is also such an easy read. This book is a must read for anyone interested in Titian and the Venetian school. Its only draw back is that the essays are not reprinted in their entirety.