point of view and thinks of his figures
as people engaged in certain actions, having certain characters,
experiencing certain states of mind and body; then he will give up the
struggle with the truths of aspect that seem so vital to the painter of
the other type and, by a frank use of conventions, will seek to
increase the importance of his figure at the expense of its
surroundings. He will give it firmer lines and clearer edges, will
strengthen its light and shade, will dwell upon its structure or its
movement and expression. He will so compose his landscape as to
subordinate it to his figure and will make its lines echo and accentuate
that figure's action or repose. When he has accomplished his task he
will have painted not man insignificant before nature but man dominating
nature.

For an example of this way of representing man's relation to the world
about him, let us take Titian's "Saint Jerome" (Pl. 22)--a picture
somewhat similar to Sargent's in subject and in the relative size of the
figure and its surroundings. Titian has here given more importance to
the landscape than was common in his day. He also has meant, as Sargent
has, to make a great deal of the wilderness to which his saint has
retired, and to make his saint a lonely human being in a savage place.
But the saint and his emotion is, after all, what interests Titian most,
and the wildness of nature is valuable to him mainly for its sympathy
with this emotion. He wants to give a single powerful feeling and to
give it with the utmost dramatic force--to give it theatrically even,
one might admit of this particular picture; for it is by no means so
favorable an example of Titian's method, or of the older methods of art
in general, as is Sargent's "Hermit" of the modern way of seeing and
painting. To attain this end he simplifies and arranges everything. He
lowers the pitch of his coloring to a sombre glow and concentrates the
little light upon his kneeling figure. He spends all his knowledge on so
drawing and modelling that figure as to make you feel to the utmost its
bulk and reality and the strain upon its muscles and tendons, and he
so places everything else on his canvas as to intensify its action and
expression. The gaze of the saint is fixed upon a crucifix high on the
right of the picture, and the book behind him, the lines of the rocks,
the masses of the foliage, even the general formation of the ground, are
so disposed as to echo and reinforce the g