Venus and The Lute Player

Artistic improvements and commentary courtesy of Wimsey Bloodhound

Venus and the Lute Player (Titian, 1865, Metropolitan Museum of Art). Titian was one of the great masters of the Renaissance and dominated Venetian art for sixty years. He was a noted colorist and the beauty of his flesh tints was unsurpassed. In his early years he was thought of as a modern artist because he increasingly freed art from the rules of symmetry and hierarchy laid down by his predecessors. Titian painted several pictures featuring Venus, thought to be an influence of the classical sculpture that he was exposed to during a sojourn in Rome.

Now although Titian was a Renaissance artist and therefore inclined to engage in much classically inspired nudity, I think that the lady in the painting would create much less trouble if she displayed far fewer of her charms. See how much more tasteful the painting looks with the addition of a Hound covering her naughty bits! Now she is much less likely to incite the rampant appetites of the male sex. (Unfortunately there was no such mechanism to mask the alluring attributes of the Lady Hounds whom I was famous for courting and serenading while my humans were trying to win me ribbons in the show ring.(“Wimsey and the Lute Player”).