GUIDE TO THE ACADEMY AT VENICE 153

it is more difficult to paint large than small; and if colour is good, it may be better for being bright.

Nay, the fault of this picture, as I read it now, is in not being bright enough. A large piece of scarlet, two large pieces of crimson, and some very beautiful blue, occupy about a fifth part of it; but the rest is mostly fox colour or dark brown: majority of the apostles under total eclipse of brown. St. John, there being nobody else handsome to look at, is therefore seen to advantage; also St. Peter and his beard; but the rest of the lower canvas is filled with little more than flourishings of arms and flingings of cloaks, in shadow and light.

However, as a piece of oil painting, and what artists call “composition,” with entire grasp and knowledge of the action of the human body, the perspectives of the human face, and the relations of shade to colour in expressing form, the picture is deservedly held unsurpassable. Enjoy of it what you can; but of its place in the history of Venetian art observe these three following points:-

(I.) The throned Madonnas of Vivarini and Bellini were to Venice what the statue of Athena in the Brazen House was to Athens.¹ Not at all supposed to be Athena, or to be Madonnas; but symbols, by help of which they conceived the presence with them of a real Goddess. But this picture of Titian’s does not profess to symbolize any Virgin here with us, but only to show how the Virgin was taken away from us a long time ago. And professing to represent this, he does not in the least believe his own representation, nor expect anybody else to believe it. He does not, in his heart, believe the Assumption ever took place at all. He is merely putting together a stage decoration of clouds, little boys, with wings stuck into them, and pantomime actors, in studied positions, to amuse his Venice and himself.

(II.) Though desirous of nothing but amusement, he is

¹ [A slip for “Sparta”: see Pausanias, iii. 17: “Here (on the Lacedæmonian acropolis) is a sanctuary of Athena, who is surnamed both Protectress of the City and She of the Brazen House.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]