Metamorphosis: Poems Inspired by Titian (National Gallery London)

by Don Paterson (Author), Carol Ann Duffy (Author), Christopher Reid (Author), Lavinia Greenlaw (Author), George Szirtes (Author), Frances Leviston (Author), George Szirtes (Author), Carol Ann Duffy (Author), Christopher Reid (Author), Lavinia Greenlaw (Author), Don Paterson (Author), Frances Leviston (Author), Don Paterson (Author), Simon Armitage (Author), Jo Shapcott (Author), Patience Agbabi (Author), Seamus Heaney (Author), Sinead Morrissey (Author), Wendy Cope (Author), Tony Harrison (Author), Nicholas Penny (Author), Hugo Williams (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2012

  $3.29

  As part of a unique collaboration between the National Gallery and the Royal Opera House, fourteen leading poets were invited to respond to three great masterpieces by the Renaissance painter, Titian: Diana and Callisto , Diana and Actaeon and The Death of Actaeon . Titian's paintings were inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses - stories of transformation - and depict the fatal consequences of a mortal tragically caught up in the affairs of the gods. Titian would have known Ovid's poem from a contemporary translation in Italian. This book's introduction by Nicholas Penny, Ovid, Titian, and English Poetry, shows how Titian incorporated specific elements from Ovid's verses in his paintings, and compares some of the most famous translations in English, from the first version by Arthur Golding (1565) to those by Joseph Addison (1717) and Ted Hughes (1997). The late Lucian Freud described Diana and Callisto and Diana and Actaeon as 'simply the most beautiful pictures in the world'. These new poems, each illustrated with full-colour details from Titian's paintings, demonstrate the quality and range of writing in Britain today, and show how Old Master paintings continue to inspire living artists.