Titian, 1513-14 at circa 1570

May malikhain at matalinong paglilining si Agamben sa dalawang pintang ito ni Titian. Iniugnay niya ito sa buong tema ng kanyang akdang The Open (Man and Animal). Sa isang seksiyon nito (“Desoevrement”, kawalang-gawain, katamaran), ginawang metapora ni Agamben ang relasyon ng magsinta, sa kalaunan ng kanilang pagsasama, upang pagmunihan ang relasyon ng mga binaryong kategorya (na buong sipag na nililikha at patuloy na pinapagana ng ”antropolohikal na makina” ng sangkatauhan):

The enigma of the sexual relationship between the man and the woman, which was already at the center of the first painting, thus receives a new and more mature formulation. Sensual pleasure and love—as the half-bloomed tree bears witness—do not prefigure only death and sin. To be sure, in their fulfillment the lovers learn something of each other that they should not have known—they have lost their mystery—and yet have not become any less impenetrable. But in this mutual disenchantment from their secret, they enter, just as in Benjamin’s aphorism, a new and more blessed life, one that is neither animal nor human. It is not nature that is reached in their fulfillment, but rather (as symbolized by the animal that rears up the Tree of Life and of Knowledge) a higher stage beyond both nature and knowledge, beyond concealment and disconcealment. These lovers have initiated each other into their own lack of mystery as their most intimate secret; they mutually forgive each other and expose their vanitas. Bare or clothed, they are no longer either concealed or unconcealed—but rather, inapparent {inapparentz}. As is clear from both the posture of the two lovers and the flute taken from the lips, their condition is otium, it is workless {senz’opera}. If it is true, as Dundas writes, that in these paintings Titian has created “a realm in which to reflect on the relationship between body and spirit,” in the Vienna painting this relationship is, so to speak, neutralized. In their fulfillment, the lovers who have lost their mystery contemplate a human nature rendered perfectly inoperative—the inactivity {inoperosita} and desoeuvrement [idleness] of the human and of the animal as the supreme and unsavable figure of life.