our picture the
distinguishing feature is the kneeling shepherd, with his little
water-cask slung on his belt, who puts us at once in touch with the
whole scene by the simple appeal to our common human experience. Raphael
could move our religious feelings to revere the godhead in the child,
but could seldom, like Titian, stir our human emotions and bring home to
us that Christ was born on earth for our sakes.

If this particular characteristic of Titian were confined to the
pastoral setting of these Holy Conversations, it might be taken as
merely accidental, and without further significance than should be
accorded to a youthful fancy. But in the wonderful _Entombment_, now in
the Louvre, in which he displays "the full splendour of his early
maturity," the human element is such an important factor in the
presentment of the divine tragedy that even a painter, M.
Caro-Delvaille, must postpone his description of the picture to
sentences like these:--"Sur un ciel tourmente," he writes, in phrases
which it is impossible to render adequately in English, "se profile le
groupe tragique. Aucun geste superflu; le drame est interieur. La
Douleur plane dans l'air alourdi du crepuscule, comme une aile
fatale--Jesus est mort! Le grand cadavre livide, que les apotres
angoisses soutiennent, n'a rien dans sa robustesse inerte de la
depouille emaciee des Christs mystiques. Le fils de Dieu semble un
patriarche douloureusement frappe par le decret d'en haut.

"Une aprete primitive, ou les larmes se cachent comme une faiblesse,
communique a l'oeuvre un pathetique si poignant que le mystere de la
mort s'etend jusqu'a nous.

"La Vierge et la Madeleine sont la. Elle, la Mere, doute de la realite,
tant elle souffre! Son regard fixe sur le corps cheri, elle ne peut
croire que tout est consomme. La pecheresse pitoyable la prend dans ses
bras pour essayer de l'arracher a l'horreur de cette vision.

"Drame humain et divin! ne sont-ce point des fils qui ramenent le
cadavre de leur pere a la poussiere? Tous ceux qui passerent par ces
epreuves se souviennent de ce deuil qui semble se prolonger dans la
nature entiere."

Titian's first period may be said to end in 1530, by which time he had
completed the famous _Peter Martyr_, which was destroyed by fire in
1867. In 1530, too, Titian's wife died. This event of itself need not be
supposed to have greatly influenced his career, as there is no evidence
of her having appealed to his artistic nature as