A youthful figure both divine and boyish leaps from his chariot into a magical world of blue and gold, rose and copper and bronze—a world of Keatsian opulence, where animals mingle with fantastic beings, nude revelers and lovely young women. Draperies float on the colored air. A vast landscape recedes past sea and town to larkspur mountains, and dissolves at last in an eternal afternoon. The picture, of course, is Titian’s “Bacchus and Ariadne.”
It is perhaps unfair to confront such modern abstractionists as Pollock and Motherwell with the greatest master of them all. Anyone painting like Titian in our time would be monster as well as monstrum. However, we might coolly examine some of the elements that make up this supreme achievement of bygone days. First, there is a “story,” a myth inextricably rooted in the entire Hellenic tradition. Much learning would be required to trace all the threads of legend and history so enchantingly knotted in this single scene. But the story is only one element, a happy pretext for bringing together other delights and qualities.
Comments