[13] The inscription on a cartellino at the base of the picture,
"Ritratto di uno di Casa Pesaro in Venetia che fu fatto generale di Sta
chiesa. Titiano fecit," is unquestionably of much later date than the
work itself. The cartellino is entirely out of perspective with the
marble floor to which it is supposed to adhere. The part of the
background showing the galleys of Pesaro's fleet is so coarsely
repainted that the original touch cannot be distinguished. The form
"Titiano" is not to be found in any authentic picture by Vecelli.
"Ticianus," and much more rarely "Tician," are the forms for the earlier
time; "Titianus" is, as a rule, that of the later time. The two forms
overlap in certain instances to be presently mentioned.
[14] Kugler's _Italian Schools of Painting_, re-edited by Sir Henry
Layard.
[15] Marcantonio Michiel, who saw this _Baptism_ in the year 1531 in the
house of M. Zuanne Ram at S. Stefano in Venice, thus describes it: "La
tavola del S. Zuane che battezza Cristo nel Giordano, che è nel fiume
insino alle ginocchia, con el bel paese, ed esso M. Zuanne Ram ritratto
sino al cinto, e con la schena contro li spettatori, fu de man de
Tiziano" (_Notizia d' Opere di Disegno_, pubblicata da J. Jacopo
Morelli, Ed. Frizzoni, 1884).
[16] This picture having been brought to completion in 1510, and Cima's
great altar-piece with the same subject, behind the high-altar in the
Church of S. Giovanni in Bragora at Venice, being dated 1494, the
inference is irresistible that in this case the head of the school
borrowed much and without disguise from the painter who has always been
looked upon as one of his close followers. In size, in distribution, in
the arrangement and characterisation of the chief groups, the two
altar-pieces are so nearly related that the idea of a merely accidental
and family resemblance must be dismissed. This type of Christ, then, of
a perfect, manly beauty, of a divine meekness tempering majesty, dates
back, not to Gian Bellino, but to Cima. The preferred type of the elder
master is more passionate, more human. Our own _Incredulity of St.
Thomas_, by Cima, in the National Gallery, shows, in a much more
perfunctory fashion, a Christ similarly conceived; and the beautiful
_Man of Sorrows_ in the same collection, still nominally ascribed to
Giovanni Bellini, if not from Cima's own hand, is at any rate from that
of an artist dominated by his influence. When the life-work of the
Conegliano master has been more closely studied in connection with that
of his contemporaries, it will probably appear that he owes very much
less to Bellini than it has been the fashion to assume. The idea of an
actual subordinate co-operation with the _caposcuola_, like that of
Bissolo, Rondinelli, Basaiti, and so many others, must be excluded. The
earlier and more masculine work of Cima bears a definite relation to
that of Bartolommeo Montagna.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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