igure sitting below them, is
an idea borrowed from Carpaccio, and perhaps taken by him from the
sketch-book of Jacopo Bellini. The men on the left are portraits of
members and patrons of the confraternity. Most Titianesque are the
beautiful women in rich dresses at the foot of the steps. In this
stately composition we see what is often noticeable in Titian's scenes;
he brings in the bystanders after the manner of a Greek chorus. They
all, with one accord, express the same sentiment. There is a certain
acceptation of the obvious in Titian, a vein of simplicity flows through
his nature. He has not the sensitive and subtle search after the motives
of humanity which we find in Tintoretto or Lotto. He has great
intellectual power, but not great imagination. It is a temper which
helps to keep the unity, the monumental quality of his scenes
undisturbed and adds to their effect. In the "Ecce Homo" Christ is shown
to the populace by Pilate, who with dubious compliment is a portrait of
Aretino, and the contrast of the lonely, broken-down man with the crowd
which, with all its lower instincts let loose, thunders back the cry of
"Crucify Him," is the more dramatic because of the unanimous spirit
which possesses the raging multitude. Other artists would have given
more incidental byplay, and drawn off our attention from the main
issue.

CHAPTER XIX

Titian (_continued_)

While Titian was executing portraits of the Doges, of Aretino and of
Isabella of Portugal, and of himself and his daughter Lavinia, he was
also striking out a new line in the ceiling pictures for the Church of
San Spirito, which have since been transferred to the Salute. Though
painted before his journey to Rome, it may be suspected that he had
Michelangelo's work in the Sixtine Chapel in mind, and that he was
setting himself the task of bold foreshortening and technical problems.
The daring of the conception is great, yet we feel sure that this is not
Titian's element; his figures in violent movement give a vivid idea of
strength and muscular force, but fail both in grace and drawing, and
though the colour and light and shade distract our attention from
defects of form, he does not possess that mastery over the flowing
silhouette which Tintoretto attained.

It was in 1543 that his relations with the Farnese, whose young cardinal
he had been painting, drew him at last to Rome. Leo X. had tried to
attract him there without success, but now at sixty-eight