Infinitely pathetic is the old master's vain attempt to infuse into the chosen subject the measure of Dionysiac vehemence that it requires. An atmosphere of unruffled peace, a grand serenity, unconsciously betraying life-weariness, replaces the amorous unrest that courses like fire through the veins of his artistic offspring, Giorgione and Titian. The audacious gestures and movements naturally belonging to this rustic festival, in which the gods unbend and, after the homelier fashion of mortals, rejoice, are indicated; but they are here gone through, it would seem, only _pour la forme_. A careful examination of the picture substantially confirms Vasari's story that the _Feast of the Gods_ was painted upon by Titian, or to put it otherwise, suggests in many passages a Titianesque hand. It may well be, at the same time, that Crowe and Cavalcaselle are right in their conjecture that what the younger master did was rather to repair injury to the last work of the elder and supplement it by his own than to complete a picture left unfinished by him. The whole conception, the _charpente_, the contours of even the landscape are attributable to Bellini. His are the carefully-defined, naked tree-trunks to the right, with above in the branches a pheasant, and on a twig, in the immediate foreground of the picture, a woodpecker; his is the rocky formation of the foreground with its small pebbles.[34] Even the tall, beetling crag, crowned with a castle sunset-lit--so confidently identified with the rock of Cadore and its castle--is Bellinesque in conception, though not in execution. By Titian, and brushed in with a loose breadth that might be taken to betray a certain impatience and lack of interest, are the rocks, the cloud-flecked blue sky, the uplands and forest-growth to the left, the upper part of the foliage that caps the hard, round tree-trunks to the right. If it is Titian that we have here, as certainly appears most probable, he cannot be deemed to have exerted his full powers in completing or developing the Bellinesque landscape. The task may well, indeed, have presented itself to him as an uninviting one. There is nothing to remind the beholder, in conception or execution, of the exquisite Giorgionesque landscapes in the _Three Ages_ and the _Sacred and Profane Love_, while the broader handling suggests rather the technical style, but in no way the beauty of the sublime prospect which opens out in the _Bacchus and Ariadne_. CHAPTER III The "Worship of Venus" and "Bacchanal" Place in Art of the "Assunta"--The "Bacchus and Ariadne"--So-called Portraits of Alfonso of Ferrara and Laura Dianti--The "St. Sebastian" of Brescia--Altar-pieces at Ancona and in the Vatican--The "Entombment" of the Louvre--The "Madonna di Casa Pesaro"--Place among Titian's works of "St. Peter Martyr."