Diana and Callisto

In the late 1550s Titian, by then old and Europe's most sought-after painter, was working through a series of large mythologies for Philip the Second of Spain. He called them poesie, poems in paint, and this is one of them. The story comes from Ovid. Callisto, a nymph sworn to the chaste goddess Diana, has been seduced by Jupiter and is now pregnant, and Titian catches the exact moment the other women strip her and the secret shows. Diana at the left raises her hand in judgement while Callisto is held down, twisting away in shame. Look closely at how it is painted. The flesh and cloth are built from loose, broken, almost smeared strokes you can read as brushwork up close. The painting hung in Britain for centuries and was bought jointly by two national galleries in 2012 for 45 million pounds.