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“What’s going on here is Titian is not illustrating Ovid. It’s not a question of ‘Here’s the text, and I’m going to provide the pictures to go with the text.’ He’s reconfiguring some of the many themes of the text. What’s Titian trying to say? How do we understand what he’s doing?” — Mary Beard
Recently, in a fit of artistic and cultural independence, the British Museum overrode protests from the highest quarters of the English government to appoint classicist Dame Mary Beard to the board of trustees of the museum. A prominent University of Cambridge professor, Getty Medal recipient, writer, and frequent BBC contributor, Beard is renowned for her outspoken advocacy for a more accessible reading of the classics and her sometimes controversial applications of its lessons and insight to contemporary themes. To illuminate its – now closed due to COVID-19 restrictions – landmark exhibition on Titian, Love, Desire, Death, the National Gallery London produced this video of Beard speaking on the influence of Ovid on Titian.
From the National Gallery:
Who was Ovid and how did Titian interpret the Roman author’s work?
Copies of the Roman poet Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ take up a lot of shelf space in Mary Beard’s study, she looks at Titian’s reinvention of the tales.
