The Trinity in Glory 1554

Titian painted *The Trinity in Glory* on canvas sometime in his long career. The main material here is oil paint, of course; pigments ground in linseed oil, spread across the canvas with brushes. But in his handling of this material, Titian was revolutionary. Look closely and you’ll see that he built up the paint in layers, then manipulated it with his fingers and rags. He was interested not just in representation, but in the pure materiality of the paint itself. Titian didn’t just want to show you God; he wanted you to feel the divine presence through the very stuff of his painting. This almost sculptural approach to paint application, in which material and representation were totally intertwined, influenced generations of artists to come.