Artist: Tiziano Vecellio (Titian)
Style: High Renaissance
Technique: Oil
A 1538 oil painting by the Italian master Titian. It depicts a nude young woman, identified with the goddess Venus, reclining on a couch or bed in the sumptuous surroundings of a Renaissance palace. Titian has domesticated Venus by moving her to an indoor setting, engaging her with the viewer, and making her sensuality explicit. Devoid as it is of any classical or allegorical trappings - Venus displays none of the attributes of the goddess she is supposed to represent - the painting is unapologetically erotic. The frankness of Venus's expression is often noted; she stares straight at the viewer, unconcerned with her nudity. In her right hand she holds a posy of roses whilst her left covers her groin, provocatively placed in the centre of the composition. In the near background is a dog, often a symbol of either fidelity or sexual profligacy; that the animal is asleep hints that the woman portrayed is unfaithful. It hangs in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.
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