Titian Tintoretto and Veronese Rivals in Renaissance Venice

She gazes, admiringly, at her own peachy, voluptuous flesh. An opulent, crimson velvet garment, limbed with fur, covers her hips. Staring into the mirror, she catches a glimpse of a viewer and modestly covers her left breast. This is Titian at his most sumptuous and erotic. It's what made him the granddaddy of the Venetian Renaissance and the envy of young upstarts Tintoretto and Veronese. Just how lusty that rivalry was is the subject of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston's most breathtaking exhibit in years, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese, Rivals in Renaissance Venice. Lots of nudes, most mythological, like this Veronese version, or this Titian, are on view here and for good reason. The year 1500 brought about a seminal change in art making, practiced most exquisitely by Titian, painting with oil on canvas. Oil gives texture, so in contrast to the stunning but stilted Virgin and Child with Saints, which is smooth, dazzling, but a little stilted, oil allows artists to convey texture. So you get the incandescent flesh of Titian or the lush, velvety reds of Tintoretto. All sorts of depth and color becomes possible with oil, and the MFA's exhibit shows the artists, like Veronese here, being inspired by each other and following each other's leads. It's hard to imagine that this Tintoretto work would have been possible without this earlier work by Titian of the Roman goddess Flora. Part of the fun of this glorious exhibit of high Renaissance art is guessing which virtuoso artist did which painting. Here's a hint. If it's overdone and crowded like this one, it's probably Veronese. Veronese, the youngest artist in the exhibit, can't help but fill every inch of the canvas, while Tintoretto, with his feathery touch and audacity, gives his work an impressive ardor and coloration. Still, it's hard to top Titian, both for his evocation of flesh as this image of Danae here being courted by Zeus disguised as golden rain. Evidently, in ancient Greece, gold coins and not diamonds were a girl's best friend. Look, finally, at this wonderful Supper at Emmaus by Titian. Look at the breathtaking composition, coloration, and evocative brushstroke. If you look closely at the tablecloth in Supper at Emmaus, you will see not only that it has been ironed, folded, and laid out over a sumptuous oriental carpet, but also the diamond-shaped weave in the tablecloth itself, an effect so brilliant that for years, this masterpiece from the Louvre was simply referred to as the tablecloth. This is Tracy O'Shaughnessy for The Republican American.