suppose, quite unrivalled, especially in passages requiring pure
gradation, as the hollows of vaultings. That of Veronese would look
ghostly beside it; that of Titian lightless. His landscape is
occasionally quaint and strange like Giorgione's, and as fine in color,
as that behind the Madonna in the Brera gallery at Milan; but a more
truthful fragment occurs in the picture in San Francesco della Vigna at
Venice; and in the picture of St. Jerome in the church of San
Grisostomo, the landscape is as perfect and beautiful as any background
may legitimately be, and finer, as far as it goes, than anything of
Titian's. It is remarkable for the absolute truth of its sky, whose
blue, clear as crystal, and though deep in tone bright as the open air,
is gradated to the horizon with a cautiousness and finish almost
inconceivable; and to obtain light at the horizon without contradicting
the system of chiaroscuro adopted in the figures which are lighted from
the right hand, it is barred across with some glowing white cirri which,
in their turn, are opposed by a single dark horizontal line of lower
cloud; and to throw the whole farther back, there is a wreath of rain
cloud of warmer color floating above the mountains, lighted on its under
edge, whose faithfulness to nature, both in hue and in its light and
shattering form, is altogether exemplary; the wandering of the light
among the hills is equally studied, and the whole is crowned by the
grand realization of the leaves of the fig-tree alluded to (Vol. II.
Part III. Chap. 5,) as well as of the herbage upon the rocks.
Considering that with all this care and completeness in the background,
there is nothing that is not of meaning and necessity in reference to
the figures, and that in the figures themselves the dignity and
heavenliness of the highest religious painters are combined with a force
and purity of color, greater I think than Titian's, it is a work which
may be set before the young artist as in every respect a nearly
faultless guide. Giorgione's landscape is inventive and solemn, but
owing to the rarity even of his nominal works I dare not speak of it in
general terms. It is certainly conventional, and is rather, I imagine,
to be studied for its color and its motives than its details.

Sec. 12. Landscape of Titian and Tintoret.

Of Titian and Tintoret I have spoken already. The latter is every way
the greater master, never indulging in the exaggerated color of Titian,
and