How Does Titian Paint Reclining Nudes

Titian can paint reclining nudes with a virtuosity not found in many, or any, other painters of the Renaissance and beyond. Titian has been described as a master of paint and color to create seductive compositions. In his other dramatic scenes too of the Poesie, such as Perseus and Andromeda, he still provides a contrived and beautiful body spread in the best way to show of her figure. In Europa, he abandons this and he must do it for a reason. She is not sexually idealized; instead she is awkwardly flung about with her torso so scrunched up that any feminine curve that once resided here is now erased in folds of skin and fat. Her scrunched pose is also in opposition to the "unfolding" pose used by Giorgione and Titian in their reclining nudes

And so the creation of an ideal woman was made of the same ideal parts forming "beautiful monsters." A representative idea is Parmigiano 's which focuses on the elongation of the body featuring many, curvaceous bends of the torso, and long, slender neck related to the shape of a vase. This vase "swells out from sturdy neck making it appear more slender, and this resembles the ideal, fleshy hipped woman, who needs no belt to set off her slender midriff." Her breasts are also supposed to “swell outwards and upwards” with no sign of bone of hard chest underneath and, the most beautiful leg is long and slender. As seen in Europa, she has none of these qualities. Her body is not elongated; instead it is made overly squat. She has no sweeping curves due to her squashed position; her neck is made invisible. Her breast is shoved up and flat combining with the hardness of her chest and her leg is made short due to the foreshortening of her position and is definitely not slender. Also "according to Firenzuola, one of the most essential parts of a woman 's beauty is her hair," Europa’s hair is barely seen. A main ability of Titian’s was to make his bodies soft, curvaceous and languid; but here he chooses the opposite. As explained by David Rosand, Europa "displays not

Many academics have analyzed The Rape of Europa and have come to many different conclusions; the two most controversial are whether Titian’s composition glorifies rape or complicates and critiques the traditional