The most Shakespearean of painters

Titian’s paintings have always been both loved and revered, and he is without question the most influential artist who has ever lived. In the 17th century, Rubens, Van Dyck, Velázquez and Rembrandt were all under his benign spell, but even more remarkably over 400 years after his death his power continues to impress. It is not by chance that both the National Gallery and the Royal Ballet are currently celebrating Titian as a source of inspiration for newly created art, ballet and music, because he remains in so many ways the most contemporary of the Old Masters.

In the world of art history, the study of Titian has given birth to a massive bibliography, which includes a host of brilliant detailed contributions, but nothing even remotely approaching a wholly satisfactory full-dress monograph or catalogue raisonné. The precise contours of his output — are individual pictures autograph or workshop, finished or unfinished? — have provoked violent differences of opinion among scholars, and appear set to continue to do so for the rest of time.