An effective design with the purpose of contrasting the ages of man is not possible, firstly, because the number of ages represented must be very limited, and, secondly, for the reason that the figures cannot be connected together in a free and easy manner. Hence all such pictures have been failures, though a few great artists have attempted the subject. Titian tried it with two children, a young couple, and an old man, assorting the personages casually in a landscape without attempting to connect them together in action.[a] At about the same time Lotto produced a contrast, also with three ages represented, namely, a boy, a young man, and an elderly man.[b] These personages sit together as if they had been photographed for the purpose, without a ray of intelligence passing between them. But this is far better than Grien's Three Ages,[c] for here the artist has strangely confused life and death, exhibiting a grown maiden, a middle-aged woman, and a skin-coated skeleton holding an hour-glass. The best design of the subject is Van Dyck's Four Ages.[d] He shows a child asleep near a young woman who is selling flowers to a soldier, and an old man is in the background. There is thus a presumed connection between three of the personages, but naturally the composition is somewhat stiff. The only other design worth mentioning is by Boecklin, who also represents four ages.[e] Two children play in the background of a landscape; a little farther back is a young woman; then a cavalier on horseback; and finally on the top of an arch an old man whom Death in the form of a skeleton is about to strike. But here again there is no connection between the figures, the consequent formality half destroying the æsthetic value of the work. From these examples than which there is none better, it may be gauged that it is hopeless to expect a good design from a subject where the ages of man are contrasted. If represented at all, the ages should be contrasted in separate pictures, as Lancret painted them. [a] Bridgewater Coll., England. [b] Pitti Palace, Florence. [c] The Prado, Madrid. [d] Vincenza Museum. [e] Vita somnium breve.