The Harlem Renaissance Was Bigger Than Harlem

The Titian might have attracted his attention for many reasons—its display of crushing grief and unvoiced faith, its sublimely controlled composition, or the warm brown skin that Titian gave the man lifting Christ’s head and shoulders, usually identified as Nicodemus. The Titian connection is not highlighted at the Met, but in its own oblique way, Douglas’s watercolor encapsulates the most important lesson this show has to offer: Art’s relationship to the world is always more complicated than you think.