Tiziano (c.1488-1576)
Ninfa e pastore (Nymph and shepherd)
c.1570–1575
Oil on canvas, 149.6 × 187 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
The theme on which the picture is based has not yet been satisfactorily clarified, but Titian raised it to the mythical level through the psychological depth of the design. Ponderous and broadly rested on an animal’s skin, revealed except for a veil, the woman with the omniscient, almost cold gaze appears as a universal force of nature in the center of the cosmic landscape. The marginally crowded clothed, leaf-crowned youth with the flute, on the other hand, expresses temporary movement and perhaps transience. Stability and instability also characterize the dramatically lit landscape, which implies eternal change, with which the figures have merged into a visionary unity. A special feature of his painting is not only the open painting style and the visible brushstroke, but also the differentiated, even contradictory painterly design of different parts of the picture. This gives Titian‘s paintings a special expressiveness. (KHM)