Focus on this artwork and discuss the Description and style.
A woman of idealized beauty overlooks a parapet and touches a bottle placed on it (which contains, perhaps, a perfume or ointment). With her right hand, she caresses her hair. A man behind her lifts a mirror to show the woman from behind and the window that illuminates the room – his presence is linked to the Renaissance Paragone debates over artistic skill. According to Paragone ideals, painting, like sculpture, should offer multiple perspectives on its subject. The man holds a second mirror, visible in profile, in which the woman gazes at herself while she dresses.
Woman with a Mirror demonstrates a harmony of color and composition typical of the young Titian, who exalted the beauty, even sensuality, of his subjects. Women of the era wore loose hair only in the intimacy of the home, which confers to the painting an erotic character that prevails over the other elements of the vanitas theme (the bottle of ointment, the play of the mirrors).
vanitas Paragone Titian