Academy, and, as Mr Herbert Cook suggests, possibly represents some cherished spot in Titian's memory connected with his mountain home at Pieve di Cadore. The _Holy Family_, above mentioned, is a most charming example of the _sacra conversazione_ as developed by Titian from the somewhat formal and austere conception of Bellini and his contemporaries into something eminently characteristic of the secular side of his genius. The very titles of two of his most beautiful and most famous pictures of this sort proclaim the hold they have taken on the popular mind. The one is the _Madonna of the Cherries_, in the Vienna Gallery. The other is the _Madonna with the Rabbit_, in the Louvre. In our picture the distinguishing feature is the kneeling shepherd, with his little water-cask slung on his belt, who puts us at once in touch with the whole scene by the simple appeal to our common human experience. Raphael could move our religious feelings to revere the godhead in the child, but could seldom, like Titian, stir our human emotions and bring home to us that Christ was born on earth for our sakes. If this particular characteristic of Titian were confined to the pastoral setting of these Holy Conversations, it might be taken as merely accidental, and without further significance than should be accorded to a youthful fancy. But in the wonderful _Entombment_, now in the Louvre, in which he displays "the full splendour of his early maturity," the human element is such an important factor in the presentment of the divine tragedy that even a painter, M. Caro-Delvaille, must postpone his description of the picture to sentences like these:--"Sur un ciel tourmente," he writes, in phrases which it is impossible to render adequately in English, "se profile le groupe tragique. Aucun geste superflu; le drame est interieur. La Douleur plane dans l'air alourdi du crepuscule, comme une aile fatale--Jesus est mort! Le grand cadavre livide, que les apotres angoisses soutiennent, n'a rien dans sa robustesse inerte de la depouille emaciee des Christs mystiques. Le fils de Dieu semble un patriarche douloureusement frappe par le decret d'en haut. "Une aprete primitive, ou les larmes se cachent comme une faiblesse, communique a l'oeuvre un pathetique si poignant que le mystere de la mort s'etend jusqu'a nous. "La Vierge et la Madeleine sont la. Elle, la Mere, doute de la realite, tant elle souffre! Son regard fixe sur le corps cheri, elle ne peut croire que tout est consomme. La pecheresse pitoyable la prend dans ses bras pour essayer de l'arracher a l'horreur de cette vision. "Drame humain et divin! ne sont-ce point des fils qui ramenent le cadavre de leur pere a la poussiere? Tous ceux qui passerent par ces epreuves se souviennent de ce deuil qui semble se prolonger dans la nature entiere."