A Queda dos Titãs

In the 1580s the town of Haarlem had just come through plague and the long Dutch revolt against Spain, and a small group of artists there set out to prove they could handle the human body as boldly as any Italian. This enormous panel, over two metres tall, was their showpiece. It takes the old myth of the gods hurling the rebel Titans down out of heaven, but really it is an excuse for muscle. Bodies tumble in every direction, seen from below, from behind, upside down, each pose harder than the last, a catalogue of what the artist could do with a naked figure. King Christian IV of Denmark bought it in 1621, which is how a Haarlem picture ended up in Copenhagen.