Diana and Callisto 1559

Titian's "Diana and Callisto" was made with oil on canvas, sometime in the mid-16th century. Of course, we think of painting as one of the "fine arts". But the making of this picture involved a whole economy of materials and practices. Canvas, stretched taut, sized, primed, layered with paint carefully milled from mineral pigments – consider the labor invested at every stage. The artist’s famed glazing technique, applying thin layers of pigment to create a luminous effect, would have been incredibly time-consuming. The brushes themselves, each hair carefully placed in a ferrule. Even the artist's studio would have been a site of collective labor, with apprentices grinding pigments, preparing canvases, and assisting in the execution of the work. The opulence of the painting, both in its subject and its material execution, speaks to the wealth and power of Titian’s patrons. It represents not just a scene from mythology, but a system of production, consumption, and the very definition of art.