Part One

I have successfully navigated my way to the top of a hundred of the highest and often most remote mountain peaks in the northern part of Scotland. However, getting to the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in the S. Polo district of Venice beat me....

We are greeted by an onrush of warm, friendly air as we alight the busy train at Venice Santa Lucia in the late Saturday morning. The sky above is blue, the typically hazy blue of the Venetian lagoon. It says softly 'welcome!'

A search for a toilet is fruitless. The station loo is closed for maintenance or repairs or something. 'You can use the toilets in these establishments on the station upon providing receipt of your purchase.' In other words, you need to buy a bottle of water (the irony....) or lunch or something before you can have a piss. I proffer this piece of information simply for anybody intending to visit Italy: pissing can be an expensive habit.

This is the style in the country; I don't mind too much, it's part of a mentality, and I can't especially blame them. It's just that two people travelling together, one of whose prostate is more expanded than it once was, and the other who guzzles water like there's no tomorrow and because it's apparently good for you, can make finding a place for a pee a bit of a time-and-energy consuming affair....

I can't remember what happened. We probably just hung on in there. But on finally stepping outside the precincts of the station we were immediately confronted by a tsunami of visitors. Half of Japan seemed to be lightly shouldering its way along within a hundred yards of Santa Lucia station. "They are everywhere!" exclaimed my wife. Once again, she has been disqualified from the annual 'woker of the year' awards.

Part Two

Cross the bridge over the Grand Canal and keep walking. Within five minutes you are in a different world. The crowds are gone, the throng is just like last night's dream. The maze of narrow walkways, given to cul-de-sacs or, if you are lucky, crossing quiet backwaters by bridgelets, has the unnerving knack of mysteriously returning you to where you were ten minutes beforehand.

Plenty of visitors can be seen negotiating the labyrinth with the aid of their phone. You see them eyes glued to the device, only vaguely aware of the unique brand of magic they are traversing. This is not for me. I persevere with map and instinct; neither of which seem to be getting us very far.

In a small enclosed piazza with a dried-up fountain in its centre we give up and sit down for a sandwich. It's the time when you call a taxi, except that here there are no taxis - nor bikes or vehicles of any description - apart from the taxi boats. And they won't be cheap.

We begin to stroll once more. I am about to give up on the Titian for the day altogether when, taking me totally by surprise, we round a corner to find ourselves looking at what I recognise immediately from the photos, the Basilica dei Frari.

The crowds outside do not translate into numbers of paying visitors inside. The moment I enter, two things hit me immediately. Firstly, it is not possible to see into the building, as a screen obscures the view of the interior. And secondly, this is a place of good feeling. Most churches and other foci of Christian worship are not places of good feeling. Either they come dripping with guilt, sin, unworthiness, and the twisted anguish that accompanies morbid fascination with crucifixion. Or, as in the case of many Protestant buildings, they have been wrung dry of any life force or life blood altogether.

A minority of Christian churches and cathedrals maintain an energy that can be termed 'positive'. One that benefits humans on the lookout for the higher life. In some cases this energy is sufficiently strong as to be healing in effect. In a rare outburst of enthusiasm on the matter, Howdie Mickoski once declared that 'Five hundred years ago they didn't need hospitals.' Sorry, Howdie, I don't think you're right; but there is a point being made.

Light, spacious, and extending onwards: the Church of the Frari on that warm Saturday afternoon invited a lengthy visit.

We wander along its body stretching out in front of us. But despite ourselves it is impossible to avoid the reality of being inexorably pulled onwards by the vision at the far end of the church. Exerting a magnetic force, the great painting of 'the Assumption' by Titian overwhelms proceedings.

I am not going to say much about this particular painting. The best thing is to just look. And look again tomorrow. And the day after. This is the way to get to know and gain the feel of a painting. And this is an unusual piece in many ways. It needs attention, and love.

What I will say most simply is that vertically it possesses three different levels. The lowest is the physical, the mundane, in the form of a bunch of excitable and sometimes disturbed apostles. The top level is some kind of heaven, with god the greybeard in attendance. But it is the figure of Mary - Maria to me - in between, who magnetises attention. She is a figure of power, communicated in part but not completely through the richness of colour and the grace of her deportment.

Part Three

From what I gather, the Assumption is taken by orthodoxy as the moment when the mother of Jesus leaves this Earthly plane. She is lifted up towards god physically: it is not 'spirit' which leaves the body, but she ascends bodily, in some versions at least. This is a strange notion, and maybe goes towards clarifying one curious element in the painting. Maria is ascending, but she does not incorporate the normal marks of ascension. She remains fully physical, and her body is not extended upwards. Rather, she stands with feet planted firmly on a cloud, if that's possible. She is a fully physical being, and in this some of her power and attraction resides.

It's a classic Christian theme, so there is nothing that is open to interpretation, right? Wrong. Ambiguity, ambivalence, mystery: all are the hallmark of a fine work of art, a playground for the divine human imagination, maybe. When we look at a truly fine painting, or listen to a superlative piece of music, we are gazing into the mirror as much as imbibing anything specific from the heart and mind of an artist.

A friend of mine sees in Titian's 'Assumption' the muse in ecstasy. I can get that. But there are other things that I see in the mirror of Maria and her ascent to heaven, in the particular and extraordinary way that this artist has painted it.

Here are one or two observations along with one or two curiosities.

At the foot of the painting, the clamour of apostles seems to characterise human existence on the material plane. Shock, drama, emotional turmoil, the rest of it. 

Above them, beyond their reach, are the cherubs or putti, or whatever they are. Researchers probably exist who have looked properly into the phenomenon of the cherubs and putti in Italian Renaissance art, but I have been unable to dig them out. It's one of the themes that is resurrected from the classical world by the Renaissance painters, and it seems to have really come online around the 1430s. By the time that Titian created his Assumption they are everywhere.

What they are about remains a bit vague; they appear to have many possible roles and guises. But what is striking about the infant characters surrounding Maria is their physicality, and the overall vibe they give off. Not at all loving and peaceful angelic types, as we might be led to believe. They are more like mischievous and not-so-high dimensional entities, the like of which I understand populate the lower astral realms, as they are sometimes called, just outside the normal range of perception of human beings.

Part Four

What really catches my attention is this: take a look at where Maria is headed. The programme will tell us that she is off to heaven, to unite with God the Father, and that this is some kind of great spiritual victory. But if we look at what is actually happening in Titian's painting.....

There's this guy with a beard awaiting Maria, and observation of his features suggests that he is not necessarily such a great one to be hanging out with. And his world, his realm: it recedes into the background, indistinct and golden. In an upper reflection of the putti world, it is teeming with some kind of golden non-corporeal entities. This is what convention leads us to believe that 'heaven' and 'paradise' consist of. But to me it looks like a vivid representation of some peoples' near death experiences. And it is highly suggestive of the realm the soul may enter after death, which represents what I have been calling the reincarnation soul trap.

Is Titian unwittingly presenting to us an image of reality, an image of the post-death prison which many are mistakenly led to believe is the perfect paradise?

Fitting this notion is the shape of this upper realm. It is like a big bowl, a beautiful golden bowl. But it is enclosed, with no entrance or exit. There is no way out. There is no escape, into truly infinite consciousness; into freedom. You remain firmly in the grip of time-and-space. Maria, you are being trapped. Don't unite with old beardie, he's not the real deal. There is a true union, a genuine two-in-one, an authentic expression of the absolute. But it ain't within the golden bowl of old beardie.

Maria, do not join him. Move on, on and up. On, up, and out. Go home, to your real home. Please. Maria, it's time to get out....   

Images: The Grand Canal; The Assumption, with details of cherubs/putti and of 'God'