"Titian" at the National Gallery, London. February 19, 2003-May 18, 2003. (Exhibition notes).

With the exception of the museum personnel whose livelihood depends on them, nobody likes a crowd at an art exhibition. Aesthetic experience isn't encouraged by peering over the shoulders of a half-a-dozen onlookers, the tinny squawk of audio tours, or waiting on what are often onerous lines. Looking at a painting or sculpture is a one-to-one encounter that benefits from an unimpeded view, an amplitude of time, and peace and quiet. That these attributes are absent from the typical blockbuster show doesn't mean that a real engagement with art is impossible. Only a cynic could claim that the nuances of a Leonardo drawing couldn't make themselves known through a thicket of gallery-goers. Nor do I want to insinuate that the glories of art should be the purview of a privileged few. It's just that there's no denying that the pedestrian traffic one encounters at a museum can make the solace we seek from art a hassle to obtain.

Which isn't to say that the same crowds can't tell us something about the art they are viewing. The exhibition I saw prior to visiting London's National Gallery--where a retrospective of paintings by the Venetian painter Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1487-1576), better known as Titian, is on display--was the Matthew Barney show at New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Comparing the two shows might seem spurious work. What can such radically disparate events hope to tell us about the art audience? One answer is that no artist, not even a Renaissance master, is invulnerable to hype (though he is likely to be less dependent on it than the art scene's latest culture starlet). Many people visit big museum shows because they are, as it is said, the place to be.

Another answer to the question is that the manner in which crowds move through an art exhibit can be a fairly reliable indicator of the quality of work on view. Visitors to the Guggenheim drift past Barney's spectacle as if they instinctively know that it isn't worth bothering with in the first place. Visitors to the National Gallery, in contrast, take their time and get up close to Titian's paintings. The crowd I wrestled with in order to view The Andrians (c. 1523-1524) was hunched around it as if they couldn't bear to leave the canvas until its last virtue had been absorbed. Given how various, abundant, and sexy its virtues are, one felt curmudgeonly begrudging them their concentration.

"Titian" is the first of three exhibitions the National Gallery will dedicate to painters of the Renaissance; El Greco and Raphael are on the docket for 2004. If the museum's current show is any indication, the future exhibitions are likely to enthrall and frustrate, at least a bit. Comprised of only forty or so paintings, a number that includes a trio of pictures by Dosso Dossi and collaborations with Giovanni Bellini and Jacopo Palma il Vecchio, "Titian" is less extensive an exhibition than one might have hoped for. One understands, of course, that matters of conservation prevent museums from lending--and possibly endangering--their treasures; definitive exhibitions are becoming less possible. And it should quickly be mentioned that "Titian" doesn't stint on masterpieces--any show that includes A Man with a Quilted Sleeve (c. 1510), the aforementioned Andrians, Danae (1544-1546), Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-1523) and the charming Clarissa Strozzi (c. 1542) merits a stopover. So, one shouldn't grouse too much.

Still, there are notable absences here, to name ...