f his early comrade, but the group of
women to the left in the "Miracle of the Child" shows that Titian is
beginning more decidedly to enunciate his own type. The introduction of
portraits proves that he was tending to rely largely upon nature, in
contradistinction to Giorgione's lyrically improvised figures. He fuses
the influence of Giorgione and the influence of Antonello da Messina and
the Bellini in a deeper knowledge of life and nature, and he is passing
beyond Giorgione in grasp and completeness. When he was able to return
to Venice, which he did in 1512, a temporary peace having been concluded
with Maximilian, he abandoned the uncongenial medium of fresco for good,
and devoted himself to that which admitted of the afterthoughts, the
enrichments, the gradual attainment of an exquisite surface, and at
this time his works are remarkable for their brilliant gloss and finish.

During the next twelve years we may group a number of paintings which,
taken in conjunction with those of Giorgione, show the true Venetian
School at its most intense, idyllic moment. They are the works of a man
in the pride of youth and strength, sane and healthy, an example of the
confident, sanguine, joyous temper of his age, capable of embodying
its dominant tendencies, of expressing its enjoyment of life, its
worldly-mindedness, its love of pleasure, as well as its noble feeling
and its grave and magnificent purpose.

For absolute delight in colour let us turn to a picture like the "Noli
me tangere" of the National Gallery. The golden light, the blues and
olives of the landscape, the crimson of the Magdalen's raiment, combine
in a feast of emotional beauty, emphasising the feeling of the woman,
whose soul is breathed out in the word "Master." The colour unites with
the light and shadow, is embedded in it; and we can see Titian's delight
in the ductile medium which had such power to give material sensation.
In these liquid crimsons, these deep greens and shoaling blues, the
velvety fulness and plenitudes of the brush become visible; we can look
into their depths and see something quite unlike the smooth, opaque
washes of the Florentines.

In such a masterpiece as "Sacred and Profane Love," painted during
these years for the Borghese, there are summed up all those artistic
aims towards which the Venetian painters had been tending. The picture
is still Giorgionesque in mood. It may represent, as Dr. Wickhoff
suggests, Venus exhorting Medea