"About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters – especially Titian who, aged 88 in plague-ridden Venice, chose as his final mythological subject the flaying of Marsyas, the satyr killed for challenging with his pan pipes the lyre of the god Apollo. In a harrowing picture of slow torture on an airy summer night, the faun is strung up like a butchered animal, hind legs strapped to a tree with gaudy pink bows, amid a claustrophobic clutter of persecutors and witnesses. These include King Midas, depicted with Titian’s own features, and a spaniel lapping up Marsyas’s blood." - Maitani from Bookmarklet