t
the portraits to know we are face to face with one of the greatest and
most universal of painters. Consider, then, La Donna Velata (245), or
the Pope Julius II (79), or the Leo X with the two Cardinals (40), how
splendid they are, how absolutely characterised and full of life, life
seen in the tranquillity of the artist, who has understood everything,
and with whom truth has become beauty. In the Leo X with the Cardinals,
Giulio de' Medici and Lorenzo dei Rossi, how tactfully Raphael has
contrived the light and shadow so that the fat heavy face of the Pope is
not over emphasised, and you discern perfectly the beauty of the head,
the delicacy of the nostrils, the clever, sensual, pathetic, witty
mouth. And the hands seem to be about to move, to be a little tremulous
with life, to be on the verge of a gesture, to have only just become
motionless on the edge of the book. It is in these portraits that the
art of Raphael is at its greatest, becomes universal, achieves
immortality.

There remains to be considered the splendid ever-living work of Titian.
The early work of the greatest painter of Italy, of the world, greatest
in the variety, number, and splendour of his pictures, is represented in
the Pitti, happily enough by one of the most lovely of all Italian
paintings, the Concert (185), so long given to Giorgone. A monk in cowl
and tonsure touches the keys of a harpsichord, while beside him stands
an older man, a clerk and perhaps a monk too, who grasps the handle of a
viol; in the background, a youthful, ambiguous figure, with a cap and
plume, waits, perhaps on some interval, to begin a song. Yet, indeed,
that is not the picture, which, whatever its subject may be, would seem
to be more expressive than any other in the world. Some great joy, some
great sorrow, seems about to declare itself. What music does he hear,
that monk with the beautiful sensitive hands, who turns away towards his
companion? Something has awakened in his soul, and he is transfigured.
Perhaps for the first time, in some rhythm of the music, he has
understood everything, the beauty of life which passeth like a sunshine,
now that it is too late, that his youth is over and middle age is upon
him. His companion, on the threshold of old age, divines his trouble and
lays a hand on his shoulder quietly, as though to still the tumult of
his heart. Like a vision youth itself, ambiguous, about to possess
everything, waits, like a stranger, as though invoked