Sublime Truth and the Senses: Titian's "Poesie" for King Philip II of Spain. Marie Tanner. London: Harvey Miller, 2018. 232 pp. EUR110.
Cecilia, his future wife and the mother of his two sons, Pomponio and Orazio. Again, it isn't really possible to prove or to disprove this biographical reading. Our possible objections are, though, deflected by Loh's own throwaway description of her idea as "an informed art historical fantasy at best" (19) Where, she thus seems to ask, are the boundaries between fact and fantasy in making an interpretation of a picture? Loh tells us early on that she would like to present Titian as a painter philosopher. But many of her best analyses reveal instead Titian's primary concern with more immediate things: with his materials, for example, and with the depiction of a vast range of the surfaces and stuffs, as well as living beings, both human and animal, all presented as if from life, unique and individual. Perhaps he was, after all, a marvelous imitator of nature, as his great friend Aretino and so many since have noted. There is something altogether more material, tactile, and worldly about Titian than Loh's philosopher idea would allow. But once again she does not insist on this too much. And as a contemporary primer for how to look at paintings, Loh's embedded approach (always varying and shifting perspectives) is particularly impressive. Alighting on an overlooked detail or quarrying down an obscure specialism of local material practice (silk production, ring culture, dog breeding, falconry, etc. Loh nearly always manages to say something interesting or new. Rather than rigidly pursuing a thesis, the very lightness of Loh's birdlike flitting across the surfaces of Titian's art entails, rather, a principle of deflection: the postmodern standing off from commitment to any one line of argument and the weightlessness this allows. I must, finally, admit that when I returned to my own thesis driven monograph on Titian, issued by the same publishers (Tom Nichols, Titian and the End of the Venetian Renaissance [2013] the experience was somewhat chastening. Loh's nonchalant ingenuity and fluid wit, along with her ability to inventively defamiliarize even the most discussed among the great master's works, has opened up the way for a new kind of Titian whose more immediate realities his long love affair with Cecilia or his obsession with babies, dogs, fur, jewelry, and clothing are, after all, much more appealing than the aspects I had highlighted: his ferocious individualism, professional jealousy, and old age avarice.
Renaissance Quarterly