Loh explores Titian’s lifelong art of painting "materiality, the body, and the senses,"adding a postmodern philosophical viewpoint . . . With her lively intelligence, curiosity, and emotive writing style, the author shows the nonspecialist how to view a Titian painting and suggests many possible ways to think about each work. Proceeding chronologically and thematically, Loh considers Titian's work within his personal and historical circumstances, drawing on previous scholarship and a variety of methodologies and introducing new theories and speculation of her own. Particularly impressive is her use of a wide range of primary material (contemporaneous records, letters, diaries, treatises, art theory) to create a vivid sense of Titian, his patrons, friends, family, studio, and career in sixteenth-century Venice. Also noteworthy is the author’s ability to pivot from traditional art historical methods to postmodern theory and the idea that a painting and the viewer together construct its meaning. Readers at all levels will be drawn into this beautifully produced, engaging text; specialists will be interested in the excellent notes and bibliography. . . . Highly recommended.
