tentative look, which makes a sympathetic appeal.
The attendant angels look on with an air of sweet interest. The distant
mountains, the undulating country, the little town of Conegliano,
identified by the castle on its great rock, or _Cima_, are Arcadian in
their sunny beauty. The clouds, as a critic has pointed out, are full of
sun, not of rain. The landscape has not the sombre mystery of Titian's,
but is bright with the joyous delight of a lover of outdoor life. As
Cima masters the new medium he becomes larger and simpler, and his forms
lose much of their early angularity. A confraternity of his native town
ordered the grand altarpiece which is still in the Cathedral there, and
in this he shows his connection with Venice; the architecture is partly
taken from St. Mark's, the lovely Madonna head recalls Bellini, and a
group of Bellinesque angels play instruments at the foot of the throne.
Cima is, however, never merged in Bellini. He keeps his own clearly
defined, angular type; his peculiar, twisted curls are not the curls of
Bellini's saints, his treatment of surface is refined, enamel-like,
perfectly finished, but it has nothing of the rich, broken treatment
which Bellini's natural feeling for colour was beginning to dictate.
Cima's pale golden figures have an almost metallic sharpness and
precision, and though they are full of charm and refinement, they may
be thought lacking in spontaneity and passion. To 1501 belongs the
"Incredulity of St. Thomas," now in the Academy, but painted for the
Guild of Masons. It is a picture full of expression and dignity, broad
in treatment if a little cold in its self-restraint. Cima seems to have
not quite enough intellect, and not quite enough strong feeling.
However, the little altarpiece of the Nativity, in the Church of the
Carmine in Venice, has a richer, fuller touch, and this foreshadows the
work he did when he went to Parma, where his transparent shadows grow
broader and stronger, and his figures gain in ease and freedom. He
never loses the delicate radiance of his lights, and his types and his
architecture alike convey something of a peculiarly refined, brilliant
elegance.

Like all these men of great energy and prolific genius, Cima produced an
astonishing number of panels and altarpieces, and no doubt had pupils on
his own account, for a goodly list could be made of pictures in his
style, but not by his own hand, which have been carried by collectors
into widely-scatter