accumulation of political misfortune, gloomier than ever before, more
completely detached from the things of the world. Barely over fifty at
this moment, he seemed already, and, in truth, was an old man, while the
master of Cadore at seventy-three shone in the splendid autumn of his
genius, which even then had not reached its final period of expansion.
Titian enjoyed the confidence of his imperial master during this second
visit in a degree which excited surprise at the time; the intercourse
with Charles at this tragic moment of his career, when, sick and
disappointed, he aspired only to the consolations of faith, seeing his
sovereign remedy in the soothing balm of utter peace, may have worked to
deepen the gloom which was overspreading the painter's art if not his
soul. It is not to be believed, all the same, that this atmosphere of
unrest and misgiving, of faith coloured by an element of terror, in
itself operated so strongly as unaided to give a final form to Titian's
sacred works. There was in this respect kinship of spirit between the
mighty ruler and his servant; Titian's art had already become sadder and
more solemn, had already shown a more sombre passion. The tragic gloom
is now to become more and more intense, until we come to the climax in
the astonishing _Pietà_ left unfinished when the end comes a quarter of
a century later still.

And with this change in the whole atmosphere of the sacred art comes
another in the inverse sense, which, being an essential trait, must be
described, though to do so is not quite easy. Titian becomes more and
more merely sensuous in his conception of the beauty of women. He
betrays in his loss of serenity that he is less than heretofore
impervious to the stings of an invading sensuality, which serves to make
of his mythological and erotic scenes belonging to this late time a
tribute to the glories of the flesh unennobled by the gilding touch of
the purer flame. And the painter who, when Charles V. retired into his