About a dozen years ago Europe began to wonder if America had any art worth considering. She invited us to send samples of our paintings that her critics might judge of our work. Among the pictures selected was Homer Martin's "The Harp of the Winds." At once Europe saw that an American artist had painted a masterpiece. This scene is on the River Seine, a short distance from Paris. Was anything ever more simple? Slender willow-trees almost leafless, bare rocks with a few scrubby bushes, a tiny village sheltered in a curve of the river--what is there to suggest a picture? And yet something grips us. We seem to be at the beginnings of creation. Nature is confiding in us. We are hearing the winds play on the harp to the listening river. See how lovingly the water mirrors those harp strings all sparkly with gold and green! I wonder if these willows make a harp or a lyre with their tall stalks reaching to the sky? Do you remember how, when Mercury found a tortoise, he took the shell and made holes on both sides and strung nine strings across it--one for each Muse--and gave it to Apollo? I think this Harp of the Winds has nine strings in memory of Mercury's lyre. [Illustration: FIG. 34. THE HARP OF THE WINDS. MARTIN. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City] THE TRIBUTE MONEY TITIAN, OR TIZIANO VECELLI (1477-1576) Every child must know "The Tribute Money," painted by Titian, for no artist understood the scene better than he did. Remember that the bad men in Palestine were determined to find something that Jesus, the Christ, had done against the Roman Government so they could trap him. At last they sent one in authority to question him. But Jesus said, "Bring me a penny, that I may see it." And they brought him a penny. And Jesus said, "Whose is this image and superscription?" And the man was forced to say, "Caesar's." Then Jesus made that famous reply that people use so often to-day: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Titian shows the moment when the tax-gatherer must say that the penny belonged to Caesar, the Roman emperor. It had Caesar's portrait on it and Caesar's demands written on it. Look carefully at the two faces and the two hands, and tell me what you think of the two men as Titian shows them to us. [Illustration: Courtesy of Pratt Institute FIG. 35. THE TRIBUTE MONEY. TITIAN. DRESDEN GALLERY] THE MAIDS OF HONOR DIEGO RODRIGUEZ DE SILVA Y VELASQUEZ (1599-1660) If it had not been for Velasquez we should know very little about the little princes and princesses of Spain in the time of Philip IV, about the middle of the sixteenth century. He made many portraits of these children, especially of the little Princess Margarita.