The Muddied Mirror

“Cranston has enormous insight into not only the artist’s brush and its application onto the surface—perhaps no other Renaissance artist was as tactile as Titian—but also the underlying meaning of themes chosen by artist and patron.” —Patricia Meilman, author of The Cambridge Companion to Titian

“[Jodi Cranston’s] sensitive reading of the images and of relevant literary and critical texts for the period provide more than ample reward for the reader interested in Venetian painting of the sixteenth century.” —J. T. Paoletti, Choice

“Cranston provides one of the most provocative critical examinations currently available of the rhetoric and reception of style in Renaissance art. . . . Cranston's text is logically argued and, like the paintings discussed, beautifully and effectively crafted. Its greatest value lies in mapping out new approaches to analyzing style in sixteenth-century visual culture. . . . The newness of the author's approach has indeed introduced analytical tactics not often seen in scholarship on Renaissance art.” —Andrew R. Casper, Sixteenth Century Journal