The Rape of Europa

Greece to Paris, 530 BCE–1890

Titian

The Rape of Europa

1559–62

Oil on canvas, 70 × 80 3/4 in. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Look at the brushwork: the red scarf, the clouds and the water are dragged on in loose strokes that never tidy up into detail.

Look at

  • The scarf at upper right is a few wide sweeps of pink and white that stay visible as strokes.
  • The distant mountains and shore are smudged into the sky with almost no edge between them.
  • The bull's head, the woman and the cupids are brought to a finish; sky, water and shore are left open.
  • Her pose is a loose diagonal across the lower right, legs thrown one way and arm the other.
  • Also painted for Philip II; signed at lower left, under the cupid on the dolphin.

Image: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum image (2021), via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (faithful reproduction of a public-domain 2D work)

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