t, flowing with red wine from a hill in the distance; some of them
are distributing the liquor to their associates, while a nymph and two
men are dancing. The nymph is supposed to be a portrait of Violante,
Titan's mistress, as he has painted, in allusion to her name, a violet
on her breast and his own name round her arm. Her light drapery is
raised by the breeze, and discovers the beautiful form and _morbidezza_
of her limbs. In the foreground Ariadne lies asleep, her head resting on
a rich vase in place of a pillow.[3]

[Illustration: PLATE XIV.--TITIAN

PORTRAIT SAID TO BE OF ARIOSTO

_National Gallery, London_]

Cumberland says that Raphael Mengs, who lived long at Madrid at the time
when this picture was in the reception room of the New Palace, was of
opinion that Titian's superior taste was nowhere more strikingly
displayed, and remarks that he himself could never pass by it without
surprise and admiration, more particularly excited by the beauty of the
sleeping Ariadne in the foreground.

Respecting the merits of both pictures the testimony of Agostino
Carracci should not be omitted; when he viewed them in the possession of
the Duke of Ferrara he declared that he considered them the first in the
world, and that no one could say he was acquainted with the most
marvellous works of art without having seen them.

Commenting upon another picture of Titian's early period, Sir Joshua
Reynolds delivers himself of the following criticisms on Titian as
compared with Raphael, "It is to Titian that we must turn," he says, "to
find excellence in regard to colour, and light and shade in the highest
degree. He was both the first and the greatest master of this art; by a
few strokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of
whatever object he attempted, and produced by this alone a truer
representation of nature than his master, Giovanni Bellini, or any of
his predecessors, who finished every hair. His greatest object was to
express the general colour, to preserve the masses of light and shade,
and to give by opposition the idea of that solidity which is inseparable
from natural objects....

"Raphael and Titian seemed to have looked at nature for different
purposes; they both had the power of extending their view to the whole,
but one looked only at the general effect as produced by form, the
other as produced by colour. We cannot refuse Titian the merit of
attending to the general form of the object, as wel