erpieces as the _Assunta_ or
the _St. Peter Martyr_. Yet it represents in one way sacred art of a
higher, a more inspired order, and contains some pictorial
beauties--such as the great central group--of which Titian would not in
those earlier days have been equally capable.

There is another descent, though not so marked a one as in the case of
the _Danae_, with the _Venus and Adonis_ painted for Philip, the new
King-Consort of England, and forwarded by the artist to London in the
autumn of 1554. That the picture now in the _Sala de la Reina Isabel_
at Madrid is this original is proved, in the first place, by the quality
of the flesh-painting, the silvery shimmer, the vibration of the whole,
the subordination of local colour to general tone, yet by no means to
the point of extinction--all these being distinctive qualities of this
late time. It is further proved by the fact that it still shows traces
of the injury of which Philip complained when he received the picture in
London. A long horizontal furrow is clearly to be seen running right
across the canvas. Apart from the consideration that pupils no doubt had
a hand in the work, it lacks, with all its decorative elegance and
felicity of movement, the charm with which Titian, both much earlier in
his career and later on towards the end, could invest such mythological
subjects.[46] That the aim of the artist was not a very high one, or
this _poesia_ very near to his heart, is demonstrated by the amusingly
material fashion in which he recommends it to his royal patron. He says
that "if in the _Danae_ the forms were to be seen front-wise, here was
occasion to look at them from a contrary direction--a pleasant variety
for the ornament of a _Camerino_." Our worldly-wise painter evidently
knew that material allurements as well as supreme art were necessary to
captivate Philip. It cannot be alleged, all the same, that this purely
sensuous mode of conception was not perfectly in consonance with his own
temperament, with his own point of view, at this particular stage in his
life and practice.

The new Doge Francesco Venier had, upon his accession in 1554, called
upon Titian to paint, besides his own portrait, the orthodox votive
picture of his predecessor Marcantonio Trevisan, and this official
performance was duly completed in January 1555, and hung in the Sala de'
Pregadi. At the same time Venier determined that thus tardily the memory
of a long--deceased Doge, Antonio Grima