Der Raub der Europa

Titian was in his 70s in Venice when he finished this around 1562, the last of six large mythologies he called poesie, painted poems, made over a decade for Philip II, the king of Spain. The story is from Ovid: Jupiter has turned himself into a white bull, coaxed the princess Europa onto his back, and is now carrying her out to sea, her body flung backwards in alarm, a scarf streaming overhead. Up close the paint is loose and smeared, worked in places with his fingers rather than a brush, a way of painting light that later artists chased for centuries. It left Europe for good in 1896, when the collector Isabella Stewart Gardner bought it for Boston, where all six poesie were briefly reunited in 2021.