Cristo bendiciendo

Titian was very old when he painted this, well into his eighties and still working in Venice in the years around 1570. By then his hand had loosened completely. Up close the red tunic and blue cloak barely hold together as cloth, laid on in broken, smeared strokes that only resolve into a figure when you step back. X-rays show he kept changing his mind even here, shrinking the head after first painting it larger and fitting a faint halo into the old outline. This is Christ as Salvator Mundi, saviour of the world, one hand raised in blessing and the other resting on a globe. He had painted the subject before, but the late manner makes it something quieter and rougher, a holy figure surfacing out of the dark almost by touch. It reached the Hermitage in 1850 from a Venetian family's collection.