A Little Titian by The Shambles

The Shambles' Comments:  This started out to be a harsh comment on the 'art' world but ended up being a tribute to an individual artist.  It is also about how to achieve a kind of immortality and a good excuse for a lot of heavy name-dropping.

If you want your portrait done
Go to the man who's number one
Where do I place my commission?
Do I ask Picasso?
Or Michaelangelo?
No, Venice is the place to go
For a little Titian

Don't want to appear, in no Vermeer
Or the 'Laughing Cavalier'
Idiot grin, frozen in, one position
Poor Franz Hals
He should ask his pals
As to just how?
You get a little Titian

I could have asked Van Gogh
But he took the (y)ear off
Well surely, there was a man with a mission?
But a year in Provence
Is not the Renaissance
When all one wants
Is a little Titian

Well I'm no prude
But to be painted in the nude
To stand up and shed my inhibitions
Like 'The Venus Of Urbino'
In a cold studio
Is that why she shows?
Just a little Titian

Don't want to hang in the Louvre
I'd prefer to be on the move
Go around the world in a travelling exhibition
But The Uffitzi?
Would maybe suit me?
For there I could see
A room full of Titian

Among kings and heads of state
Amongst the good and the great
Philosophers and mathematicians
You, won't want my face
Hanging around your place
But you'd find the space
For a little Titian

Roger Gall