Goffen shows how female images relate to Titian's professional self-image and to his concern with larger themes: matrimonial images are linked to the means by which women attained and relinquished visibility in Italian Renaissance society, devotional images introduce the paradox of subject matter with a sexual component that both stimulates and inhibits, and mythological images are connected to the artist's use of the female body to demonstrate "divine" craftsmanship. Titian portrays his female subjects as fully conceived individuals whose psychological attributes arc as important as their bodily charms. Through his paintings Titian invites the male beholder to respond to female emotions, Goffen contends (male, because in the act of viewing such erotic images, the viewer becomes male). And more than this, Titian's women imply his own absorption of female identity as a figure of artistic creativity.

"Goffen opens the way for richer, more complex interpretations of the female figures bythat most celebrated conjurer of female bodies, Titian". -- Mary Pardo, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill