eraph whose hands support the crown and the
nimbus.

This Jehovah, like a divine bird appearing head-foremost and with body
horizontally foreshortened beneath a wave of drapery flying open like
wings, astonishes us by its sublime boldness; if it is possible for the
brush of a human being to give a countenance to divinity, certainly
Titian has succeeded. Unlimited power and imperishable youth radiate
from that white-bearded face that need only nod for the snows of
eternity to fall: not since the Olympian Jove of Phidias has the lord of
heaven and earth been represented more worthily.

[Illustration: THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN.
_Titian._]

The centre of the picture is occupied by the Virgin Mary, who is lifted
up, or rather who is surrounded by a wreath of angels and souls of the
blessed: for she has no need of any aid to mount to Heaven; she rises by
the springing upward of her robust faith, by the purity of her soul,
which is lighter than the most luminous ether. Truly there is in this
figure an unheard-of force of ascension, and in order to obtain this
effect Titian has not had recourse to slender forms, diaphanous
draperies, and transparent colours. His Madonna is a very true, very
living, and very real woman, with a beauty as solid as that of the Venus
de Milo, or the sleeping woman in the Tribune of Florence. Large, full
drapery flows about her in numerous folds; her flanks are wide enough to
have contained a God, and, if she was not on a cloud, the Marquis du
Guast might have put his hand on her beautiful bosom, as in the picture
in our Museum. Yet nothing is of more celestial beauty than this great
and strong figure in its rose-coloured tunic and azure mantle;
notwithstanding the powerful voluptuousness of the body, the radiant
glance is of the purest virginity.

At the base of the picture, the apostles are grouped in
happily-contrasted attitudes of rapture and surprise. Two or three
little angels, who link them to the intermediary zone of the
composition, seem to be explaining to them the miracle that is taking
place. The heads of the apostles, who are of various ages and
characters, are painted with a surprising force of vitality and reality.
The draperies are of that fullness and abundant flow that characterize
Titian as the richest and at the same time the simplest of all
painters.

In studying this Virgin and mentally comparing her with other Virgins of
different masters, we reflected what a