“The self-consciousness revealed by this wealth of artistic reference seems quite proper in the context of a painter’s final testament. It is frequently suggested that the kneeling figure of St. Jerome is a self-portrait, and despite the problems inherent in this sort of identification, its particular appropriateness here is impossible to deny; like Michelangelo in the Florentine Deposition, Titian would approach his Savior directly. [...] The Pietà, by its very nature, does not deal with a particular event but represents rather an eternal moment, a theological epitome in which fundamental truths are manifested in an affective but ideal image. The beauty of the visual concept resides precisely in its synthesis of human pathos and liturgical symbolism.”
On Titian’s Pietà, David Rosand