CHAPTER XXVII.

VASARI VISITS TITIAN-HIS LATTER WORKS-HIS DEATH. GENERAL REMARKS ON THE VENETIAN SCHOOL.

IN the year 1566, Vasari, who afterwards wrote the life of Titian, took a journey to Venice, and paid a visit to the great painter. He found him grown very old, being then in the eighty-sixth year of his age: but still with his pencil in his hand, and diligently at work. Vasari expresses the great pleasure he received from seeing his works; and also from his conversation. He was likewise introduced by Titian to M. Gran Maria Verdezetti, a young Venetian gentleman of extraordinary abilities, and an excellent painter of landscapes, in which he had been instructed by Titian, who behaved to him like a father. He had two pictures by Titian in two niches, one an Apollo, the other a Diana.

"I know," says Dolce, "that few of the lower rank can boast the having any portrait or other picture by Titian. Our Titian (as he calls him) is then in painting divine and unequalled; nor ought Apelles himself, were he alive, to disdain to do him honour. But, besides his wonderful excellence in painting, he has many other qualities worthy of the highest praise. In the first place, he is extremely modest, never wounding invidiously any painter's character; but speaking honourably of every one who deserves it. He also is a most elegant speaker, of a most perfect genius and judgment in all things; of a gentle and placid temper, very affable, and of the most delicate manners; insomuch that whoever once approaches him must always love him."

This is the character given of Titian by a cotemporary and a friend.

In the year 1574, Titian being then in the ninety-fourth year of his age, Henry the Third came from Poland (where he had been King) to take possession of the Throne of France, after the death of his brother Charles the Ninth but he could not pass through Venice, without visiting Titian, whose praises were sung by all the poets of his time.

Titian now having adorned not only Venice but all Italy and other parts of the world with

works of the highest order, merits to be noticed and admired by all artists; and in many parts of the art is the most excellent model for imitation, and worthy of infinite praise. His name will remain for ever distinguished among the most illustrious men.

The talents of this eminent painter were permitted a career of unusual length; and he continued the exercise of his art until the year 1576, having lived to the age of ninety-six years, when he died of the Plague.

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Towards the close of so long a life it may reasonably imagined that his works exhibited the infirmities of old age, and that his last works were little more than the feeble repetitions of his former ones. He never had any competitors in Venice that ought to have given him either jealousy or disturbance and those few who pretended to it he easily overcame by his excellence in the art, as well as by having all the nobility and the wits on his side. His pictures were paid for at what rates he pleased, so that he lived in ease and affluence; and being thus amply provided for, he had no occasion to work in his latter years, except for his own amusement and to pass the time away, but not so as to lessen by works of marked and deplorable inferiority the high reputation he had earned in his better days.

"Titian (says Mengs) ever sought truth, but not after the same manner as Raphael, who represented the mind, the sentiments and the passions, in short, the inward man: whereas Titian sought truth only in material objects, not only in the human form but in all other objects of sight. To this he applied his chief attention; more especially in respect to colour, and the particular surface of whatever he imitated. The flesh in his pictures is so exact a representation, that it appears to contain blood, humidity, muscles, and veins; and has the strongest appearance of truth. This is, therefore, the part we ought to study in him: and these qualities are to be found in all his works, not only in the most excellent, but also in those that are of an inferior order."

"Titian (continues Mengs) had no part of design, except that copied from individual nature, which he imitated well; so that when he found beauty in his model, he gave it in his work, as he possessed a great justness of the eye. And this was the case with most of the painters of that time at Venice; for had they known how to select beauty as well as Raphael, all might have been like him perfect in designing.

"Titian's practice was always to paint every

thing from nature; landscapes, the human figure, whether clothed or naked; and from this he acquired a true and essential knowledge. The custom of taking portraits served and assisted as a most advantageous exercise, because by this practice he was obliged to imitate with exactness all sorts of things (either minute or grand) and particularly draperies of rich, forcible and vivid colours, so that he was of necessity required to study the means to assimilate and unite all those different objects. And since he observed that such colours or objects as are agreeable in nature, often had a bad effect in painting, he saw there was no other way than to endeavour to imitate nature to perfection. Accordingly, we find that Titian, by his exact and just eye, great practice and close imitation, could make all things in harmony.

"The colours of the Iris or prism have a perfect harmony all together; but if either the red, the blue, or the yellow be taken away, the harmony is totally destroyed. It is the very same in respect to a picture: should it be wanting in the due proportion of each of those colours, it will be deficient in harmony. The reason is, that the true concordance consists only in the equilibrium of the three principal