How To Read Paintings: Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin
An artwork of high drama and beauty
Venice crumbles, Venice trembles. It’s waters hushed and gleaming. Tiny arched bridges cross over the narrow waterways like hooked fingers. Plants grow only in pots perched on balconies. The occasional pomegranate tree bears a fruit aloft, over a wall to a private garden.
To walk the fantastic tapestry of interlocking lanes in Venice is to play a game with the city. The narrowest of alleyways suddenly open into wide squares, and just as suddenly, converge into shadowy lanes again.
Respite from this maze can be found in the many churches that populate the city. Chilled, glorious interiors, simple hall-like spaces whose walls are lined with chapels and tombs and great oil paintings. If you visit the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, you will see one of the finest paintings in the whole city. Perhaps, in the whole world.
“And anon the soul came again to the body of Mary, and issued gloriously out of the tomb, and thus was received in the heavenly chamber, and a great company of angels with her.”
