“Why does sexual obsession so suit the medium of painting?”

This intriguing question was posed by John Berger, art critic and host of the BBC series Ways of Seeing, a landmark television show that shaped cultural studies for decades. During one episode, Berger introduced Titian as an artist who recognized that paint colors based on human pigmentation stimulate our biological responses and our sexual imagination.

The woman in Titian’s painting Venus with a Mirror oozes with desirability. It’s not the nudity, it’s the paint. Color can be very sensual.

In this luscious painting, Venus looks over her shoulder and acknowledges her reflection in the mirror by placing her left hand on her chest. Does she feel attractive? How important is feeling attractive to female sexual desire?

Two putti attend to her because she is the mythological goddess of love and beauty. One little angel holds up a mirror while the other reaches to crown her with a wreath of myrtle. The wreath serves as a reminder that Paris, the prince of Troy, crowned Venus with myrtle when he proclaimed her the most beautiful goddess of all. (More paintings of Venus)

Titian based this pose on the Venus de’ Medici, a classical Greek statue he greatly admired. But he infused the goddess with an even greater sense of dynamic movement. In contrast to its stone predecessor, his Venus radiates a startling warmth. The old master put so much red pigment in her flesh tones, I can sense the blood flowing through her veins.

Titian often said a good artist requires only three paint colors: black, white, and red. He was exaggerating, but not by much. His magnificent portraits of Cardinal Pietro Bembo and eleven-year-old Ranuccio Farnese almost prove his point.

Ultimately, Titian painted more than fifteen versions of Venus looking into a mirror. However, only one canvas was completed entirely by his own hand, without the aid of studio assistants. This definitive masterpiece now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

A tour de force of brushwork

X-ray examination of the Washington painting reveals that Titian recycled an abandoned canvas. He painted directly over a double portrait of a man and a woman standing next to each other. The man is staring intently at the woman, who appears to be reflecting on something he just said.

To create Venus with a Mirror, Titian rotated the canvas 90 degrees clockwise, then stripped away everything but the fur coat of the male figure. With great artistry, he transformed the man’s fur coat into the plush robe that now hugs Venus’s hips.

During the 16th century, this painting was just one member of a marching band of portraits all lined up in neat rows inside the artist’s orderly workshop. Each canvas depicted a well-known historical or religious figure. Among them was The Penitent Magdalene, a young woman portrayed fasting in the desert, clothed in nothing but her incredibly long, voluptuously disheveled hair.

When asked how a starving woman could be in such robust health, Titian replied with a twinkle that perhaps this was the first day of her fast.

A few good mentors

Tiziano Vecellio (Titian) was born around 1490 in a small town nestled in the Italian Dolomites. As a young boy (the story goes) he made colors from berry juice and painted a portrait on the exterior wall of a house. No word on how his parents reacted to his little escapade. But at the age of ten he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Venice.

He must have been a prodigious talent because a few years later he joined the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, then the preeminent painter in Venice. Bellini taught Titian how to achieve a lush surface texture on canvas, giving his pictures an almost palpable sense of air.

Another gifted apprentice of Bellini was Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, better known as Giorgione. A brilliant artist ten years older than Titian, Giorgione encouraged the lad’s interest in sensuous pigments and the illusion of movement.

In addition to being a major influence on Titian, Giorgione was a cult figure among young noblemen who considered themselves the intellectual vanguard of Venice. Importantly, Giorgione was the first local painter to be admired because his work looked unlike the work of other Renaissance artists.

A key work in his collection is The Old Woman (La Vecchia), an intimate portrait that is among the most striking and engaging images from the Italian Renaissance.

The old woman, who may or may not be Giorgione’s mother, has thinning gray hair and weathered skin. She wears a pretty shawl that covers part of her blouse. Age makes her gentle expression hard to read. Is she tired? Sad? Trying to smile?

Like Venus, she places one hand on her chest, however, this time the gesture registers differently. The woman is holding a slip of paper with a message that she wants us to read. The note says “Col Tempo” (“With Time”).

Tell me about it.

Postscript: If you happen to be in Washington…

Discover Back and Forth: Rozeal, Titian, and Cézanne at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. now through April 26, 2026. The exhibition illuminates the unexpected connections between four paintings that span six centuries. Click the link for details.