Riposo durante la fuga in Egitto

Titian painted this as a very young man in Venice, around 1510, when he was barely 20 and still finding a voice. Venice then was dominated by Giorgione, the painter of soft light and dreamy landscape, and you can feel that influence in the calm, open countryside the Holy Family rests in. Giorgione died of plague in 1510, and within a few years the young Titian would inherit the city's leading position. Look at the Virgin's elegant, half-turned pose. It quietly echoes the figures Michelangelo had just painted on the Sistine ceiling in Rome, news of which travelled fast among ambitious young painters. Mary sits on the ground with the sleeping child while Joseph waits and shepherds drift in the distance.