Read about the “Late Titian” show at the Kunsthistorisches Museum from MICHAEL KIMMELMAN of the New York Times in an article titled - Business (Some Unfinished) From Titian, 1500s C.E.O.

Kimmelman poses a question about Titian’s late style of painting that I find interesting:

Titian - “Jacopo Strada” Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

“..Does Titian’s late style betray aging infirmity or maybe impatience, or does it imply that pictures like this aren’t finished? Scholars have pondered this question for years. The truth seems to be that Titian, running a very busy workshop, painted differently for different clients under different circumstances. He recycled images, concocted variations that allowed him to make short cuts, had assistants do work when the assignments weren’t for kings and doges. Like the chef of a four-star kitchen, he might drop by at the end to touch up the results.”

“….Clearly Titian painted one way for the king, and his epigones turned out other works for lesser clients.”

So Titian really paid more attention to pictures when they paid him more money or were for really famous people, like a King, than the average patron.  Interesting - it hasn’t been said quite that way before - but it’s undoubtedly true:

“..Titian reminds us, among other things, that art is a business but it’s also a calling, or else it’s not really worth anything in the end. “

What’s interesting is that Art was a business in the 16th Century and it’s still a business in the 21st Century - as much as things change, they also stay the same:

“…The current system seems rigged to make rich people richer. Meanwhile Mike Kelley, the American artist, over lunch the other day bemoaned how students and many newly minted art stars seem to take for granted that art is just a business now. I’ve heard the same complaint often, mostly in private, cynicism taking hold so firmly in art circles that complaining of this sort tends to peg the complainer as a fogey and nostalgist. “