avura,
disdain to show themselves on the surface. The sublime beauty of the
landscape, in which, as often elsewhere, the golden radiance of the
setting sun is seen battling with masses of azure cloud, has not been
exceeded by Titian himself. With all the daring yet perfectly
unobtrusive and unconscious realism of certain details, the conception
is one of the loftiest, one of the most penetrating in its very
simplicity, of Venetian art at its apogee. The divine mansuetude, the
human and brotherly sympathy of the Christ, have not been equalled since
the early days of the _Cristo della Moneta_. Altogether the _Pilgrims at
Emmaus_ well marks that higher and more far-reaching conception of
sacred art which reveals itself in the productions of Titian's old age,
when we compare them with the untroubled serenity and the conventional
assumptions of the middle time.[38]

To the year 1545 belongs the supremely fine _Portrait of Aretino_, which
is one of the glories of the Pitti Gallery. This was destined to
propitiate the Grand Duke Cosimo of Tuscany, the son of his passionately
attached friend of earlier days, Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Aretino,
who had particular reasons for desiring to appear before the obdurate
Cosimo in all the pomp and opulence of his later years, was obviously
wounded that Titian, true to his genius, and to his method at this
moment, should have made the keynote of his masterpiece a dignified
simplicity. For once unfaithful to his brother Triumvir and friend, he
attacks him in the accompanying letter to the Tuscan ruler with the
withering sarcasm that "the satins, velvets, and brocades would perhaps
have been better if Titian had received a few more scudi for working
them out." If Aretino's pique had not caused the momentary clouding over
of his artistic vision, he would have owned that the canvas now in the
Pitti was one of the happiest achievements of Titian and one of the
greatest things in portraiture. There is no flattery here of the "Divine
Aretino," as with heroic impudence the notorious publicist styles
himself. The sensual type is preserved, but rendered acceptable, and in
a sense attractive, by a certain assurance and even dignity of bearing,
such as success and a position impregnable of its unique and unenviable
kind may well have lent to the adventurer in his maturity. Even Titian's
brush has not worked with greater richness and freedom, with an effect
broader or more entirely legitimate than in