What We Are Reading Today: On Quality in Art

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Updated 24 August 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: On Quality in Art

Author: Jakob Rosenberg

In this book, Jakob Rosenberg takes up the timeless problem of how to make a valid judgment about artistic quality. 

Drawing vital lessons from critics’ writings, Rosenberg charts an effective approach to the challenges of judging quality in works of art by analyzing master drawings from the 15th to 20th centuries and comparing them with examples of followers or minor contemporaries.


What We Are Reading Today: Michelangelo and Titian

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Updated 06 February 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: Michelangelo and Titian

Author: William E. Wallace

In 1529, Michelangelo was in Venice when he first met Titian, Venice’s famed painter of princes, gods, and goddesses. Coming face-to-face with Titian’s drama-infused, richly colored works, the creator of David and the Sistine Chapel ceiling realized he had met a worthy opponent. Twenty-five years later, Titian came to Rome to paint the pope, and the two met again. Painting in the Vatican, Titian experienced the full power of Michelangelo’s work and vowed to surpass the achievements of his older contemporary.

Michelangelo and Titian is the untold story of history’s greatest artistic rivalry, a competition between two monumental figures more admiring of one another than either would ever admit. William Wallace brings the world of the 16th century to life, and in particular its culture of gossip and intrigue.

Wallace challenges the established narrative of this relationship as mostly one-sided, with the younger artist in competition with the reigning master.