Noli me tangere

This is early Titian, painted around 1514 when he was still a young man in Venice and had recently been working alongside Giorgione, whose soft light and open landscapes you can feel here. The subject comes from the Gospel of John. On the morning of the resurrection Mary Magdalene finds the tomb empty and takes the figure before her for a gardener, until she recognises the risen Christ and reaches toward him. He draws back with the words that give the picture its Latin name, do not touch me. Titian sets the meeting not by a bare tomb but on a green hillside with a farm and a town spread out below. There is a pentimento here that shows how he worked. Scans reveal he first painted Christ wearing a hat, then changed his mind and turned the whole tree and the twist of the body to their present shape.