We have seen how most of the great painters loved to paint into their
pictures those scenes which they had known when they were boys, and
which to the end of their lives they remembered clearly and vividly. A
Giotto never forgets the look of his sheep on the bare hillside of
Vespignano, Fra Angelico paints his heavenly pictures with the colours
of spring flowers found on the slopes of Fiesole, Perugino delights in
the wide spaciousness of the Umbrian plains with the winding river and
solitary cypresses.
So when we come to the great Venetian painter Titian we look first with
interest to see in what manner of a country he was born, and what were
the pictures which Nature mirrored in his mind when he was still a boy.'
At the foot of the Alps, three days' journey from Venice, lies the
little town of Cadore on the Pieve, and here it was that Titian was
born. On every side rise great masses of rugged mountains towering up
to the sky, with jagged peaks and curious fantastic shapes. Clouds
float around their summits, and the mist will often wrap them in gloom
and give them a strange and awesome look. At the foot of the craggy
pass the mountain-torrent of the Pieve roars and tumbles on its way.
Far-reaching forests of trees, with weather-beaten gnarled old trunks,
stand firm against the mountain storms. Beneath their wide-spreading
boughs there is a gloom almost of twilight, showing peeps here and
there of deep purple distances beyond.
Small wonder it was that Titian should love to paint mountains, and
that he should be the first to paint a purely landscape picture. He
lived those strange solemn mountains and the wild country round, the
deep gloom of the woods and the purple of the distance beyond.
The boy's father, Gregorio Vecelli, was one of the nobles of Cadore,
but the family was not rich, and when Titian was ten years old he was
sent to an uncle in Venice to be taught some trade. He had always been
fond of painting, and it is said that when he was a very little boy he
was found trying to paint a picture with the juices of flowers. His
uncle, seeing that the boy had some talent, placed him in the studio of
Giovanni Bellini.
But though Titian learned much from Bellini, it was not until he first
saw Giorgione's work that he dreamed of what it was possible to do with
colour. Thenceforward he began to paint with that marvellous richness
of colouring which has made his name famous all over the world.
At first young Titian worked with Giorgione, and together they began to
fresco the walls of the Exchange above the Rialto bridge. But by and by
Giorgione grew jealous. Titian's work was praised too highly; it was
even thought to be the better of the two. So they parted company, for
Giorgione would work with him no more.
Venice soon began to awake to the fact that in Titian she had another
great painter who was likely to bring fame and honour to the fair city.
He was invited to finish the frescoes in the Grand Council-chamber
which Bellini had begun, and to paint the portraits of the Doges, her
rulers.
These portraits which Titian painted were so much admired that all the
great princes and nobles desired to have themselves painted by the
Venetian artist. The Emperor Charles V. himself when he stopped at
Bologna sent to Venice to fetch Titian, and so delighted was he with
his work that he made the painter a knight with a pension of two
hundred crowns.
Fame and wealth awaited Titian wherever he went, and before long he was
invited to Rome that he might paint the portrait of the Pope. There it
was that he met Michelangelo, and that great master looked with much
interest at the work of the Venetian artist and praised it highly, for
the colouring was such as he had never seen equalled before.
'It is most beautiful,' he said afterwards to a friend; 'but it is a
pity that in Venice they do not teach men how to draw as well as how to
colour. If this Titian drew as well as he painted, it would be
impossible to surpass him.'
But ordinary eyes can find little fault with Titian's drawing, and his
portraits are thought to be the most wonderful that ever were painted.
The golden glow of Venice is cast like a magic spell over his pictures,
and in him the great Venetian school of colouring reaches its height.
Besides painting portraits, Titian painted many other pictures which
are among the world's masterpieces.
He must have had a special love for children, this famous old Venetian
painter. We can tell by his pictures how well he understood them and
how he loved to paint them. He would learn much by watching his own
little daughter Lavinia as she played about the old house in Venice.
His wife had died, and his eldest son was only a grief and
disappointment to his father, but the little daughter was the light of
his eyes.
We seem to catch a glimpse of her face in his famous picture of the
little Virgin going up the steps to the temple. The little maid is all
alone, for she has left her companions behind, and the crowd stands
watching her from below, while the high priest waits for her above. One
hand is stretched out, and with the other she lifts her dress as she
climbs up the marble steps. She looks a very real child with her long
plait of golden hair and serious little face, and we cannot help
thinking that the painter's own little daughter must have been in his
mind when he painted the little Virgin.
Titian lived to be a very old man, almost a hundred years old, and up
to the last he was always seen with the brush in his hand, painting
some new picture. So, when he passed away, he left behind a rich store
of beauty, which not only decked the walls of his beloved Venice, but
made the whole world richer and more beautiful.