Sebastian del Piombo followed the same style, and imitated Giorgione very closely, though he fell short of him in vigour; he likewise had most success in portraits, and particularly exct Iled in the admirable painting of the hands, the fine flesh tints, and, as is usual with the Vene tian masters, the lordly accompaniments that surrounded his figures. Geo. de Udine, and 'Torbido, called II Moro, were both of Giorgione's school, as well as old Palma, and many other masters, which it were needless to enumerate here.
Titian was nothing of a poet ; he was a mere painter ; but as a painter of nature he had few equals in his own age or any other. In his females, it is nature in the rich est bloom and full glow of beauty, and in his male figures there is a lordly dignity and splendour in which he stands unrivalled. Titian was the favourite child of nature, for he seemed to see but her beauties, and selected with ad mirable discrimination, both in portrait and landscape, the subjects most suitable to his pencil and particular tone of feeling. So quick and correct was his perception of the infinite modifications of light and colours, the diversities of demi-tints reflected and blended in the interminable maze of nature's colouring, as to acquire at last an ex quisitely delicate and transparent mode of painting. No thing escaped him that exists in nature, however subtle • and evanescent ; it is not uncommon, in his pictures, to observe the surrounding colours and objects delicately re flected by every surface capable of reflecting, even in the eyes of the figures; and at the same time that he follow ed nature into her most secret details, he knew how to preserve the equilibrium of colouring to a degree superior to any painter that ever existed, and which so few have been able to command. Instead of his broad shades being the dark mass generally placed for the relief of light, they are found, upon examination, to consist of that innumerable an playful shifting of shades, which is discernable in the deepest shadows of nature when minutely examined. In Titian's pictures they appear simple and easily managed, because they produce the majestic simplicity of nature ; but it is a simplicity arising from infinite variety.
Shade is not the absolute absence of light, otherwise it becomes a hole in the picture ; the objects under its in fluence must be as disti%guishable in form and colour as when placed in light In this Titian has, above all others, succeeded, so disposing them, as to produce per fect repose from the judicious balancing of the picture. Shade is entirely governed by contrast and juxtaposition, for what is light in one part would be shade, if otherwise placed ; accordingly, we find those objects opposed to a light sky acquire a degree of comparative shade, while the same tone becomes light when opposed to a darker object.
There are some brilliant pictures of Titian in the ducal palace of Venice, and in other collections of that city, where they seem so perfectly at home, in correspondence with the glowing warmth and tone of splendour that per vades the local scenery. Titian continued his labours to the venerable age of ninety-nine, and had he been spared by the plague, might have numbered a hundred years of his celebrated career, as his natural strength enabled hum to wield his pencil to the last. His later works do, not withstanding, indicate a feebler flight of genius, the fail ure of sight and the tremulous band of old age. He was quite impatient of the trouble of teaching, so that he left few scholars, but has always had a numerous host of imi tators. He was jealous and fearful of rivals to such an extent, that he cautiously excluded Tintoretto from his study. and having discovered in his own brother re markable capacity and predisposition lor painting, he obliged him to renounce the pencil and become a mer chant. Paris Bordon was among the best of his followers.
'I'intoretto, though he imitated the colouring of Titian, was a painter of quite a different cast, full of fire and sprightliness He studied the ancients, and painted with surprising expedition, and, notwithstanding incorreetnes,, of design, he was perhaps the first of the Venetian school. His real name was Robusti, which was not an unapt ap pellation for a man of his vigorous genius. Vasari stamps his taste as the excess of fantastical, which the opportu nities we have had of examining his great works at Ve nice, and elsewhere, make us disposed to controvert ; bold and fanciful we admit, but we can scarcely go along with Vasari. when he asserts, " That of all the extraordinary geniuses that ever practised the art of painting, for wild, capricious, extravagant, and fantastical inventions, for fu rious impetuosity, and boldness in the execution of his work, there is none like Tintoretto ; his strange whimsies are even beyond extravagance, and his works seem to be preduced rather by chance, than in consequence of any previous design, as if he wanted to convince the world that the art was a trifle, and of the most easy attainment." There is in general an exuberance of bustle among his figures, which discomposes the grouping and irritates the attention ; he was neglectful of the-advantage to be drawn from the introduction of groups and figures who merely look on and take no part in the action,—one of the helps so much observed by the best painters, and so useful to connect the spectator with the picture.