of coloring which has never been excelled. He understood how to distribute his lights in such a manner as was wholly peculiar to himself, which gave great force and roundness to his figures." He filled up all that was yet wanting in the masterpieces of his contemporaries, which appeared hard and dry compared with the soft melting lines, the gliding outlines and transparent shadows of his graceful conceptions. He delighted in depicting the pleasurable emotions; and all his figures express heavenly rapture or earthly bliss; they are bathed, so to speak, in the joy of existence, and even in suffering have an expression of gentle melancholy rather than of woe. All is life, movement and variety; but it must be owned that, in his love of expressing the passions, he sometimes degenerated into affectation. CORREGGIO. Parma, which town he had previously visited in 1515. For the former he chose as a subject the Ascension of Christ; and for the latter the Coronation of the Virgin, now in the Biblioteca; it is represented in S. Giovanni by a copy. These works were finished in 1524. The pictures, though some are removed and others much damaged, exhibit considerable grandeur of design, and are remarkable for the extensive use of foreshortening which the study of perspective had introduced. Of Correggio's early life little is known. He neither belonged to the noble family De Allegris, nor was he brought up in poverty-both of which have been recorded of him. His early teachers in art were men of no note, but in 1511 he visited Mantua and was much influenced by the works of Mantegna. His genius ripened early, and on his return to Correggio in 1514, at about the age of twenty, he executed for the Franciscan Convent at Carpi a large altar-piece known as the Madonna di S. Francesco, now in the Dresden Gallery, and a few years later a series of frescoes in the convent of S. Paolo, at Parma, in which the influence of Da Vinci is very noticeable. In 1520 Correggio was commissioned to paint the cupola and choir of S. Giovanni, at Later in his career the great master displayed considerable love of the antique, and in 1525 he painted for the Duke of Mantua the Education of Cupid (now in the National Gallery), considered one of his master-pieces. Other works of a similar character are his Leda with the Swan and Io and Jupiter, both in the Berlin Museum; and his Danae in the Borghese Palace, Rome. To this period of his life belong many fine altar-pieces, Holy Families, and sacred pictures. The Dresden Gallery is especially rich in works by Correggio-containing, among others, the famous Nativity, called the La Notte (or "Night "), because it is lighted entirely by the nimbus round the head of the Holy Child; and the yet better known Reading Magdalen. The Parma Gallery contains the famous Madonna della Scodella and the Madonna and S. Jerome, representing the Saint offering his translation of the Bible to the Madonna and Child-also called Il Giorni, or "Day," on account of the fullness and radiancy of the light diffused over the whole scene. In the Louvre are the Marriage of S. Catharine, and the Antiope; in the Naples Gallery the Madonna known as La Zingarella," from the peculiar head-dress of the Virgin; and in the National Gallery the famous Ecce Homo, representing Christ presented by Pilate to the people, a Holy Family (known as La Vierge au Panier), remarkable for the knowledge displayed in it of aërial perspective, and Christ's Agony in the Garden, in which the master's peculiar command of light and shade is well illustrated-the Saviour being illuminated from Heaven, and the attendant angel by light reflected from the person of the Lord. During the years 1526 to 1530, Correggio was engaged on a most important work-the Assumption of the Virgin, on the dome of the cathedral at Parma. It is a masterly piece of vigorous design and foreshortening, but is wanting in correctness of drawing, and exhibits a confusion of limbs which gained for it the title of a "hash of frogs." The School of Parma may almost be said to begin and end with Correggio. He had no pupils who attained to any eminence; but he had many imitators, of whom Francesco Mazzuoli (1504-1540), known by the name of Parmigiano, was the chief, and indeed the only one of importance. His style resembles that of Correggio in many particulars; but he also combines some of the peculiarities of Michel the frescoes of the choir of S. Maria della Steccata at Parma, in which occurs the world-famous figure of Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law, which Sir Joshua Reynolds chose as a typical specimen of the correctness of drawing and grandeur of conception acquired by Mazzuoli through his study of the works of Michelangelo, contrasting it with his earliest work, S. Eustachius, in the church of S. Petronio at Bologna, in which the future master aimed "at grace and grandeur before he had learned AETERIS DEI PATEFECIT ST. JOHN. angelo and Raphael. Had he lived at any other period he would probably have risen to the highest rank as a painter; for, although inferior to the five great men we have named as the master-spirits of the age, he greatly surpassed most of his other contemporaries. He excelled in invention and design; and his later works are characterized by a correctness of drawing and grandeur of conception sometimes wanting in those of Correggio. His Vision of S. Jerome, in the National Gallery, is one of his earlier productions. In 1531 he commenced BY CORREGGIO. to draw correctly." Of his easel pictures, Cupid making his Bow, in the Belvedere at Vienna, is considered the most remarkable; and of his altarpieces, S. Margaret, in the Bologna Academy. THE VENETIAN SCHOOL. Comparatively free from the constant action of those external influences which were brought to bear on the artists of Upper Italy, the Venetians steadily pursued the course commenced by the Bellini, and finally evinced a consummate mastery of coloring, which, as we have seen, was the predominant characteristic of the Early Venetian School. Seeking beauty for its own sake, they found it, so to speak, by transfiguring common nature-by treating the events and objects of familiar life in a grand and lofty manner, which was the fitting expression of the love of splendor characteristic of the proud citizens of the Mistress of the Sea. The masterpieces of Giorgione, Titian, and others are a reflection of the magnificence of Venice at this time; but a reflection idealized and stamped with impress of eternal beauty. The Venetian painters cultivated the sensuous rather than the intellectual side of human nature; and in their works faithfulness of pictorial representation is ever of greater moment that the moral lesson to be conveyed; with wonderful mastery over all the technical processes of their art, they rendered accurately the warm coloring of flesh-one of the painter's most difficult tasks-and the effects of light on different materials, in a manner never surpassed. Giorgio Barbarelli, called Giorgione (ab. 1476 TITIAN. for his portraits. Many celebrated personages sat to him. He worked much in fresco; but there is but little left to show us what we have lost by the destruction of his works. Few of his easel-pictures now remain; and many works commonly ascribed to him are said by competent critics to be by Sebastiano del Piombo, Palma, Pallegrino Lotto, Romanino, Moretto, and others. The easel-pictures universally agreed to be by him are 1511), was the first to break free from the trammels of the Early Venetian School. The fellow-pupil of Titian, in the school of the Bellini, he soon proved his superiority to his masters, his paintings being distinguished for a luminous glow, a depth of coloring, and a purity of outline never before attained. He was one of the first of the Venetians to give prominence to landscape, and he was also famous Sebastiano Luciani, called Del Piombo (14851547), if not actually the pupil of Giorgione, was much influenced by his style, and attained to considerable fame as a colorist and portrait painter. His Raising of Lazarus, in the National Gallery, is generally considered his masterpiece; the group of Lazarus and the figures near him was designed by Michelangelo, under whom he worked for some time. TITIAN. The greatest Venetian painter of the sixteenth century was, however, Tiziano Vecellio, commonly known as Titian (1477-1576), who first studied with a painter named Zuccato, then with Gentile Bellini, and subsequently with Giovanni, in whose studio he labored side by side with Giorgione. Titian's first patron was Alfonso I., Duke of Ferrara, for whom he executed several of his masterpieces. He was employed by the Senate to complete the work, left unfinished by Giovanni Bellini, in the Sala del gran Consiglio, Venice; this he did to the great approval of the authorities, and was rewarded with the office of La Sanseria-i. e., that of painter-in-chief to the Doges of Venice. In 1532 he went to Bologna at the invitation of Charles V., but did not (as has been commonly asserted) accompany that monarch to Spain. He was much patronized by the Duke Federigo Gonzaga, by Paul III. at Rome, and by other persons of note. The great Venetian colorist lived to the age of ninety-nine, and was in the full possession of all his faculties, when he was carried off by the plague in 1576. He was buried in the church of S. Maria de Frari, Venice. Titian's works combine the distinctive excellences of Giorgione and Correggio, with a lofty original character of their own. In coloring Titian stands preeminent; his rendering of flesh-tints has never been surpassed, and in his landscapes and groups his treatment of local coloring and chiaro-oscuro has seldom been equaled. He is considered the finest portrait painter of any age; his figures live on canvas; they are real beings, whom we seem to know as we look THE TRIBUTE MONEY. BY TITIAN. into their calm, dignified faces, and they are as perfectly finished as the best works of the Dutch School. Aiming only at truth, Titian excelled all the other Italian painters in realistic imitation of nature; and, although this very faithfulness precluded the development of ideal beauty, his works are all characterized by a calm nobility of figure and expression; his creations are as full of serene and conscious enjoyment of existence as those of Giorgione are of stern and active energy; and in his long life of ninety-nine years he produced a series of masterpieces which raised him to the head of the new Venetian School. It would be impossible in a work like the present to give anything like a full account of the numerous works of Titian, which enrich all the great cities of Europe. In his early paintings he followed the IN THE DRESDEN GALLERY. style of Bellini, impressing it, however, with a power of his own. Of these the Resurrection, above the high altar of S. Nazzaro, in Brescia, is among the most important. More famous is his Christ and the Tribute Money, in the Dresden Gallery, of a somewhat later date, in which the Head of Christ is especially beautiful. Of the large sacred works in the master's completed manner the Entombment (ab. 1523), in the Louvre, in which the most exquisite truth and beauty of form are combined with dignity of expression and depth of feeling; the Presentation (ab. 1539), and the Assumption of the Virgin (1516), both in the Academy at Venice; and the Supper at Emmaus, in the Studj Gallery at Naples; the Christ at Emmaus (ab. 1546), in the Louvre-are among the principal. Equally famous is the picture of Christ appearing to Mary Magdalen after His Resurrection (known as Noli Me Tangere), in the National Gallery, which also possesses two fine Holy Families. Titian's most celebrated historical works are his Death of S. Peter Martyr (1528), which was |