they are, and is grateful. But even the most obscure of mortals may have
his preferences, and a curious chapter in the lives of individuals who
have concerned themselves with painting would be the bewildering way in
which the pendulum of their appreciation and admiration has swung backwards
and forwards from Titian to Velasquez, from Velasquez to Rembrandt, and
sometimes back to Titian. It is often a question of mood.

There are moods when the regal abundance, the consummate craftsmanship of
Titian, the glow and splendour of his canvases, the range of them from _The
Man with the Glove_ in the Louvre to the _Bacchus and Ariadne_, force us to
place him on the summit of Parnassus. We are dazzled by this prince of
painters, dominating Venice at the height of her prosperity, inspired by
her, having around him, day by day, the glorious pictures that the genius
of Venice had produced. We follow his triumphant career, see him courted
and fêted, recognise his detachment from the sorrow and suffering of the
unfortunate and unclassed, and amid the splendour of his career note his
avidity for the loaves and fishes of the world. Unlike Rembrandt, fortune
favoured Titian to the end. His career was a triumphal progress. We stand
in that small room at the Prado Museum at Madrid and gaze upon his
canvases, sumptuous and opulent, diffusing colour like a sunset,
indifferent to their story or meaning, happy and content with the flaming
feast outspread for our enjoyment. We stand before his _Entombment_ at the
Louvre, dumb before its superlative painting, with hardly a thought for the
tragedy that it represents. Titian accepts the literary motive, and the
artist in him straight forgets it. We walk from _The Entombment_ to the
little chamber where Rembrandt's _Christ at Emmaus_ hangs, and the heart of
Rembrandt is beating there. To Titian the glory of the world, to Rembrandt
all that man has felt and suffered, parting and sorrow, and the awakening
of joy. We do not compare the one painter with the other; we say: "This is
Titian, that is Rembrandt; each gives us his emotion." Foolish indeed it