Die Kreuzigung

By 1558 Titian was about 70 and had painted for the courts of Europe for decades, yet this Crucifixion turns away from all that splendour. A Venetian merchant named Pietro Cornovi, then living in Ancona on the Adriatic coast, ordered it for a church there, and Titian signed it on the foot of the cross. Instead of a crowded Calvary he gives you three figures against a darkening sky, Mary and John below and Saint Dominic kneeling at the base. The colour is almost drained away. Dark blues, browns and reds are broken only by sudden near-white flashes of light on the flesh. It belongs to the last stretch of his life, when he kept returning to grief and bodily pain rather than glory.