It is quite simply one of the most beautiful paintings in the world. But there is a real danger that if the current campaign to save Titians’s masterpiece for the nation is unsuccessful, we’ll lose the incomparable beauty of his Diana and Actaeon forever. For me, the pleasure derived from this picture is quite complex, but there’s no doubt that it comes in part from knowing that the painting is where I can see it, whenever I want to.

I believe passionately that one of the greatest gifts we have as a nation is free access to our museums and galleries. This should not be underestimated, because it gives us a sense of ownership of our national collections. Because of it, viewing Diana and Actaeon becomes a collective experience. It was one of the first privately owned Old Master paintings in history to be made accessible to the British public, has been viewed by visitors since 1806, and has been housed by the National Galleries of Scotland since 1945. Its history is as a public picture. It “belongs” to us.

I’ve been visiting the National Galleries of Scotland since I was a child, and my early experiences with this picture had a profound effect on me. It’s a painting that is not only part of my past but I also can’t imagine it not being part of my future.

It’s often said that Titian is the painter’s painter and I know why. It’s because painters revere him. I know that sometimes it’s possible to feel a certain distance from an Old Master painting: you’re aware of the time that has passed since the painting was made. But with Titian, that distance simply isn’t felt. Although I know this painting is about 450 years old, it feels to me as if it has just been made. It’s impossible not to respond to the potency of Titian’s use of paint, as it displays such a lust for life. Through paint, he manages to convey the true pleasures of seeing and of touching, senses that are so important to feeling excitement when you look at a work of art.

It is an incredibly complex and unsettling picture, dealing with the gruesome story of Diana’s revenge on the noble young hunter Actaeon as he accidentally comes across her bathing. But it is also a deeply sensual painting. If you look closely, the rendering of the naked, blushing flesh is simply astonishing and the sheer beauty of the drawing and painting of the human body is virtually incomparable, even within Titian’s own work.

How scandalous it must have been in the 16th century to view the perfect buttocks of Diana as they press so seductively into soft, red velvet. For, almost five centuries later, Titian’s Diana still maintains her terrifying sexual power as she twists her body away from Actaeon and us.

The sum needed to save this painting is vast, at a time when our banks are being taken under state control and we are heading into recession. Our immediate future looks gloomy, but it takes many things to make up a great nation and how we preserve our cultural heritage says something about who we are.

The purpose of great art is to allow us to think differently about the world and give us sensations that otherwise we might not have had. And that is what this painting does. For that reason, Diana and Actaeon is priceless, and we must save it.

For more information on the campaign to keep the Titians, visit www.nationalgalleries.org

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