审慎的寓言

Titian painted this late in his long life, and it reads almost like a riddle. Three human heads face three ways. On the left an old man in profile looks back, in the centre a mature man meets your eye, and on the right a young man in profile looks ahead. Below them run three animal heads, a wolf, a lion, and a dog, an old emblem for the passage of time, for what is past, present, and to come. There is a faint line of Latin above the figures. It reads, roughly, that the present acts prudently on the lessons of the past, so as not to spoil what the future does. Scholars have wondered whether the old face is Titian himself, thinking about handing his estate to the next generation, though others doubt it and read it simply as a lesson in prudence. The three ages of one man, set out side by side in a single frame.