f
colour, and never attain the purity of blue with which Titian has gifted
his flower. But the master does not aim at the particular colour of
individual blossoms; he seizes the type of all, and gives it with the
utmost purity and simplicity of which colour is capable." A second point
to be noticed is the way in which one kind of truth has often to be
sacrificed in order to gain another. Thus here Titian sacrifices truth
of aerial effect to richness of tone--tone in the sense, that is, of
that quality of colour which makes us feel that the whole picture is in
one climate, under one kind of light, and in one kind of atmosphere. "It
is difficult to imagine anything more magnificently impossible than the
blue of the distant landscape; impossible, not from its vividness, but
because it is not faint and aerial enough to account for its purity of
colour; it is too dark and blue at the same time; and there is indeed so
total a want of atmosphere in it, that, but for the difference of form,
it would be impossible to tell the mountains intended to be ten miles
off, from the robe of Ariadne close to the spectator. Yet make this blue
faint, aerial, and distant; make it in the slightest degree to resemble
the tint of nature's colour; and all the tone of the picture, all the
intensity and splendour will vanish on the instant."[3] We may notice
lastly what Sir Joshua Reynolds points out (Discourse VIII.), that the
harmony of the picture--that wonderful bringing together of two times of
which Lamb speaks above, is assisted by the distribution of colours. "To
Ariadne is given (say the critics) a red scarf to relieve the figure
from the sea, which is behind her. It is not for that reason alone, but
for another of much greater consequence; for the sake of the general
harmony and effect of the picture. The figure of Ariadne is separated
from the great group, and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour
of the sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian thought
necessary for the support and brilliancy of the great group; which group
is composed, with very little exception, entirely of mellow colours. But
as the picture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts,
one half cold, and the other warm; it was necessary to carry some of the
mellow colours of the great group into the cold part of the picture, and
a part of the cold into the great group; accordingly, Titian gave
Ariadne a red scarf, and to one of the Bacchan