Saint John the Evangelist on Patmos c. 1553 - 1555

Curator: Here we have Titian’s "Saint John the Evangelist on Patmos," likely completed between 1553 and 1555. Editor: The colours! Immediately, I'm struck by this almost visceral pull towards the light, which looks anything but divinely cool to me—more like a blast furnace. Curator: It's an interesting take. Titian captures the saint in mid-revelation, reaching towards the heavens, while cherubic figures swirl above. We see his symbolic eagle, perched attentively by his side, and the landscape itself seems to writhe in empathy with the saint's visionary experience. Editor: Note the really fascinating and incredibly coarse weave of the canvas though. This wasn't some passively-received masterpiece but the product of intense, physical labour. The thick oil paint seems almost flung onto the canvas; consider the socio-economic structures in place that supported such an undertaking and the use of costly pigments for devotional works. Curator: Perhaps Titian wanted us to feel John's rapture—to mirror his reaching hands with our own yearning? The rough texture does feel like it breaks that surface decorum in a pleasing way and invites a type of active and very contemporary kind of reception. Editor: Absolutely. How are the raw materials of devotion manufactured, consumed? Look at the incredible drapery, probably dyed with precious pigments and produced with complicated technology of textile mills. That's why he places the emphasis on Saint John, to act as conduit between human labor and god’s will. Curator: Yes, because in Titian's era, Venice, where he lived and worked, was all about that transaction: materials and images flowed and got transfigured into stories. He seems to be suggesting some similar transfiguration in paint. A story that he maybe didn’t make up from scratch in his studio, and one that never completely lets go of how it was built, either. Editor: Which for me, in our moment, encourages a crucial reassessment. What exactly is devotional art, and what's its relationship to the political economy? Curator: So perhaps it makes this vision even more real, more earthy… Editor: Precisely. I can imagine Saint John labouring in those draperies and understand just where we all find ourselves right now.