Titian's Touch: Art, Magic and Philosophy

(Hardback)

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At the end of his long, prolific life, Titian was rumored to paint directly on the canvas with his bare hands. He would slide his fingers across bright ridges of oil paint, loosening the colors, blending, blurring, and then bringing them together again. With nothing more than the stroke of a thumb or the flick of a nail, Titian's touch brought the world to life. The clinking of glasses, the clanging of swords, and the cry of a woman's grief. The sensation of hair brushing up against naked flesh, the sudden blush of unplanned desire, and the dry taste of fear in a lost, shadowy place.

Titian's art, Maria Loh argues in this exquisitely illustrated book, was and is a synesthetic experience. To see is at once to hear, to smell, to taste, and to touch. But while Titian was fully attached to the world around him, he also held the universe in his hands. Like a magician, he could conjure appearances out of thin air. Like a philosopher, his exploration into the very nature of things channelled and challenged the controversial ideas of his day. But as a painter, he created the world anew. Dogs, babies, rubies, and pearls. Falcons, flowers, gloves, and stone. Shepherds, mothers, gods, and men. Paint, canvas, blood, sweat, and tears. In a series of close visual investigations, Loh guides us through the lush, vibrant world of Titian's touch.

Reviews

"More than anyone it was Titian who launched what would remain for half a millennium the quintessential art object: the framed, autonomous painting executed in oil on canvas. At long last, Loh has given us a book that does justice to this immense historical achievement. Titian's Touch is a peerless introduction to the artist and a mesmerizing primer in how to look at paintings."--Joseph Leo Koerner, Harvard University
"With Titian's Touch, Loh has achieved something quite rare, a genuinely fresh and engaging study of an artist whose paintings may be very familiar but are very difficult to turn into a satisfying account. In some ways this book is like a journey that starts from a known place and takes you somewhere you could not have imagined, and does so by interconnecting an impressive depth of knowledge with a highly imaginative approach to images. It is witty and elegant, and always self-aware. And, most importantly, it reconnects the work of Titian with a broader and more contemporary readership."--Rose Marie San Juan, University College London
"This short book reminds us of Titian's achievement, something we may be too much inclined to take for granted. . . . What Loh does is to explain how Titian, a master of capturing the physical world, did so the more skillfully because of his exploration of the mysteries lying beneath."-- "Catholic Herald"

Author Bio

Maria H. Loh is professor of art history at CUNY Hunter College. Previously she taught in the Department of History of Art at University College London. She is the author of Titian Remade: Repetition and the Transformation of Early Modern Italian Art and Still Lives: Death, Desire, and the Portrait of the Old Master. She lives and works in New York and London.