So
unapproachable are the soft lights and tones on the perfect arms and
shoulders of the full-bodied maiden, that Tintoret one day exclaimed in
despair before it, "That fellow paints with ground flesh."
This gallery possesses one of the last works of Titian, - the Battle of
Lepanto, which was fought when the artist was ninety-four years of age.
It is a courtly allegory, - King Philip holds his little son in his arms,
a courier angel brings the news of victory, and to the infant a
palm-branch and the scroll Majora tibi. Outside you see the smoke and
flash of a naval battle, and a malignant and tur-baned Turk lies bound
on the floor. It would seem incredible that this enormous canvas should
have been executed at such an age, did we not know that when the pest
cut the mighty master off in his hundredth year he was busily at work
upon a Descent from the Cross, which Palma the Elder finished on his
knees and dedicated to God: Quod Titianus inchoatum reliquit Palma
reverenter absolvit Deoque dicavit opus.
The vast representation of Titian rather injures Veronese and Tintoret.
Opposite the Gloria of Yuste hangs the sketch of that stupendous
Paradise of Tintoret, which we see in the Palace of the Doges, - the
biggest picture ever painted by mortal, thirty feet high and
seventy-four long.
The sketch was secured by Velazquez in his tour through Italy. The most
charming picture of Veronese is a Venus and Adonis, which is finer than
that of Titian, - a classic and most exquisite idyl of love and sleep,
cool shadow and golden-sifted sunshine. His most considerable work in
the gallery is a Christ teaching the Doctors, magnificent in
arrangement, severely correct in drawing, and of a most vivid and
dramatic interest.
We pass through a circular vaulted chamber to reach the Flemish rooms.
There is a choice though scanty collection of the German and French
schools. Albert Durer has an Adam and Eve, and a priceless portrait of
himself as perfectly preserved as if it were painted yesterday. He wears
a curious and picturesque costume, - striped black-and-white, - a graceful
tasselled cap of the same. The picture is sufficiently like the statue
at Nuremberg; a long South-German face, blue-eyed and thin,
fair-whiskered, with that expression of quiet confidence you would
expect in the man who said one day, with admirable candor, when people
were praising a picture of his, "It could not be better done." In this
circular room are four great Claudes, two of which, Sunrise and Sunset,
otherwise called the Embarcation of Sta. Paula, and Tobit and the Angel,
are in his best and richest manner.
