TITIAN. 



ftudy, being fo perfcdlly (kilfiil in colour and imitation. 

 Adding, " if this man were as much aided by art in defign 

 as he is by nature, and mod particularly fo in giving jiift 

 refemblance of natural objefts, he would be perfeft ; as he 

 has a noble fpirit, and a beautiful and lively manner." 



He did not remain long in Rome, but on his return to 

 Venice vifited Florence, where he beheld with delight the 

 great works of art with which it is adorned, and vifitod 

 tne grand duke Cofmo, who declined his offer to paint his 

 portrait, perhaps, as Vafari obferves, that he might not 

 give umbrage to the ingenious artifts of his own city and 

 aominions. 



Immediately upon his arrival at Florence, he received an 

 invitation from his patron, Charles V., to vifit Spain, and 

 accordingly went to Madrid, where he arrived in 1550. 

 He remamed there three years, during which time he painted 

 a great number of portraits and hiftoric;J pifturcs. For 

 the portrait which he painted of the emperor, he received 

 . 1000 crowns of gold, and was created a knight of the 

 order of St. Jago, and a count palatine of the empire, 

 with a llipend from the treafury of Naples of 200 crowns 

 annually ; and to this, Philip II. added afterwards 200 more, 

 befides paying him munificently for each of his produftions. 

 When Charles had devoted his life to the aufterities of a 

 convent, he commifEoned him to paint a large pitlure of 

 the Trinity, accompanied by the Holy Virgin, and fur- 

 rounded by faints and angels, in which the emperor, and 

 the emprefs his wife, were reprefented elevated to the 

 heavens, and in the aft of adoration. There is a fltetch of 

 it in England, and a print lias been engraven from the 

 pi^ure, by which it appears to have been a very grand 

 work. 



Though Titian had returned to his native place before 

 Philip II. came into pofTeffion of the throne, and was as 

 much engaged as he could be, yet that monarch, when he 

 had built the Efcurial, and conceived the idea of enriching 

 it with the mod fplendid materials, reforted to his father's 

 favourite painter to affift him in perfefting it ; and though 

 it does not appear that Titian returned to Spain, yet Tie 

 mufl have employed his pencil very adiduoufly in its fervice 

 from the very great number of his piftures which are to 

 be found there, many of them among his very fined pro- 

 duftions. Several of thefe have been withdrawn by the 

 fcruples of bigotry from public view ; and among them his 

 picture of a fleeping Venus, which was preiented by 

 Philip IV. to our Charles I., when prince of Wales, on his 

 viiit to Spain, and which after his death was purchafed by 

 the Spanifh ambaffador, then refident here. 



Titian was invited by Henry VIII. to England, but his 

 numerous engagements on the continent prevented him from 

 coming. He painted, however, two piftures for Henry, 

 which now adorn Cleveland Houfe (the marquis of Staf- 

 ford's). Their fubjefts are the Bath of Diana, with the 

 unfortunate intrufion of Afteon, and the Difcovery of ihe 

 crime of Calida, and both are exquifite performances, and 

 in tolerably good prefervation. They continued in the 

 royal colleftion till it was difperfed on the death of 

 Charles I., and found their way into the gallery of the 

 duke of Orleans ; and on the purchafe of the Italian part 

 of that colleftion being efFefted by the duke of Bridge- 

 water, the earl of Carhde, and lord Gower, thefe piftures 

 fell to the lot of the former of thefe noblemen. 



This great painter is one of the happy few, for whom 

 nature and circumdances have combined in fortunate con- 

 junftion. " For him," as Vafari judly obferves, " health 

 and fortune laboured, and he received of heaven only happi- 

 »efs and bleflings." By him the higheft among mcr., the 



mod learned, and the mod beautiful, were proud to liave 

 their portraits tranfmitted to poderity. Ho was handfome 

 in perfon an<l graceful in manners, and lived in a dylc 

 worthy of one fo honoured and beloved. Thefe blcflingg 

 he was permitted to enjoy through a very uncommon por- 

 tion of human exidence, which was at length interrupted 

 by the plague in his 96th year. He appears to have been 

 able to purfue his delightful art to a very advanced period, 

 for Vafari found him painting in 1566, when he vifited him 

 at Venice, .and fpeaks of it with pleafure ; and though it 

 may well be imagined that the latter produftions of his 

 pencil exhibit the ilrong hand of time, yet they are free 



and maderly in every thing in which a perfeft knowledge 



;ak only 

 in the execution. 



of the principles of the art are concerned, and wea 



Had Giorgione lived but to one-half of the lengthened 

 years of his great rival, Titian might not perhaps have dood 

 fo completely at the head of the Venetian fchool of paint- 

 ing, as from his numerous excellent produftions he now 

 does. That noble work, the death of S. Pietro Martire, 

 alone fully entitles him to this didinftion and honour : per- 

 haps no other produftioii of the pencil is fo perfeft in the 

 combination of every requifite quality of a hue painting j 

 compofition, dcfign, atlion, expreffion, chiaro-fcuro, and 

 colour. The clioice of the fcene, and the accompaniments, 

 are every way adapted to aflid in creating alarm and difmay ; 

 the tone of evening or twilight fpread over the whole, and 

 contraded to the briUiant ray of heavenly light from above, 

 aids the impreflion ; and the execution is in every part cor- 

 refpondent to the grandeur of form felefted. Tliis pifture 

 he painted, as we have faid, in the prime of his life, when he 

 was about forty-three ; and he continued long after to work 

 in the fame dyle, which is of his own creation, and totally 

 different from both his former laboured one, and his latter 

 loofe and vague manner. In this pifture, every part is 

 wrought to an «xaft charafter of reprefentation, though 

 without minutenefs, or in any degree trefpalling upon tne 

 heroic nature of the tragic fubjeft ; and there is no intro- 

 duftion of heterogeneous matter, as is too frequently to be 

 found in his hidonc produftions. Here he appears to have 

 caught a glimpfe of tne grandeur of Michael Angelo's dyle, 

 and to have employed it more effeftaaliy than in any other 

 of his works, except perhaps in the figures on the ceiling of 

 the Salute at Venice, and the martyrdom of St. Laurence 

 in the Jefuits'. In general, his feleftion of form is but Uttle 

 improved upon his model | his male figures being too 

 flefhy for charafter or aftion, and his females too full for 

 elegance. 



The mind of Titian appears to have been of a fedate and 

 rather ferious charafter. There is, as fir Jodiua Reynolds 

 has obferved, " a fenatorial dignity about him," which dif- 

 tinguifhes him from his compeers of the Venetian fchool. 

 All his compofitions are arranged with gravity ; even the gay 

 and fometimes licentious fubjefts which he now and then 

 amufed himfelf with, are condufted with fncli a fcale of 

 chiaro-fcuro and colour, as gives an air of morality to their 

 effeft, which impofes upon the fpeftator a tone ot fobriety, 

 and induces him to difcard thufe loofe thouglits which the 

 gay luxuriance of the Hyle of Rubens, treating the fame 

 compofitions, would inevitably excite. 



Colouring appears to have been the grand foundation of 

 the fuccefs of Titian. He knew better than any other 

 painter the juil power of each colour of his pallette ; and by 

 this knowkdjje, produced a fpecies of chiaro-fcuro inde- 

 pendent of liglit and diade, and perfeftly didinft from thjt 

 of Corregio and Lionardo da Vinci, and more immediately 

 imitative of the general effefts of r.ature. Mafter of the 

 8 means 



