Персей и Андромеда

In the mid 1550s Titian was working for the most powerful patron in Europe, King Philip II of Spain, and this was one of a set of large mythological paintings he made for him. Titian called them his poesie, his poems in paint, and he took every subject from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Here Perseus dives out of the sky at the sea monster while Andromeda, chained naked to the rock, twists to watch, the rescue caught at its most violent instant with the hero still upside down in the air. Titian changed his mind repeatedly as he worked, moving figures around, and you can trace those shifts under the surface. Of the whole set this is the one in the worst condition today, but also often called the most dramatic. The paintings were scattered over the centuries, and this one ended up in London, where it now hangs in the Wallace Collection.