Fate has dealt less unkindly with Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese than with
Giorgione. The works of these artists, in whom the Venetian Renaissance
attained completion, have been preserved in large numbers and in excellent
condition. Chronologically speaking, Titian, the contemporary of
Giorgione, precedes Tintoretto, and Tintoretto is somewhat earlier than
Veronese.[281] But for the purpose of criticism the three painters may be
considered together as the representatives of three marked aspects in the
fully developed Venetian style.

Tintoretto, called by the Italians the thunderbolt of painting, because of
his vehement impulsiveness and rapidity of execution, soars above his
brethren by the faculty of pure imagination. It was he who brought to its
perfection the poetry of _chiaroscuro_, expressing moods of passion and
emotion by brusque lights, luminous half-shadows, and semi-opaque
darkness, no less unmistakably than Beethoven by symphonic modulations. He
too engrafted on the calm and natural Venetian manner something of the
Michael Angelesque sublimity, and sought to vary by dramatic movement the
romantic motives of his school. In his work, more than in that of his
contemporaries, Venetian art ceased to be decorative and idyllic.

Veronese elevated pageantry to the height of serious art. His domain is
noonday sunlight ablaze on sumptuous dresses and Palladian architecture.
Where Tintoretto is dramatic, he is scenic. Titian, in a wise harmony,
without either the AEschylean fury of Tintoretto, or the material
gorgeousness of Veronese, realised an ideal of pure beauty. Continuing the
traditions of Bellini and Giorgione, with a breadth of treatment, and a
vigour of well-balanced faculties peculiar to himself, Titian gave to
colour in landscape and the human form a sublime yet sensuous poetry no
other painter in the world has reached.

Tintoretto and Veronese are, both of them, excessive. The imagination of
Tintoretto is too passionate and daring; it scathes and blinds like
lightning. The sense of splendour in Veronese is overpoweringly pompous.
Titian's exquisite humanity, his large and sane nature, gives proper value
to the imaginative and the scenic elements of the Venetian style, without
exaggerating either. In his masterpieces thought, colour, sentiment, and
composition--the spiritual and technical elements of art--exist in perfect
balance; one harmonious tone is given to all the parts of his production,
nor can i