It begins at this time to take on a blurred, soft, impressionist character. His delight in rich colouring seems to wane, and he aims at intensifying the power of light. He reaches that point in the Venetian School of painting which we may regard as its climax, when there is little strong local colour, but the canvas seems illumined from within. There are no clear-cut lines, but the shapes are suggested by sombre enveloping shades in which the radiant brightness is embedded. His landscapes alter too; they are no longer blue and smiling, filled with loving detail, but grander, more mysterious. In the "St. Jerome" in Paris the old Saint kneels in wild and lonely surroundings, and the moon, slowly rising behind the dark trees, sends a sharp, silver ray across the crucifix. The "Supper at Emmaus" has the grandiose effect that is given by avoidance of detail and simplification of method. Titian painted several portraits of himself, and we know what sort of stately figure was presented by the old man of seventy who, at Christmas in 1547, set forth to ride across the Alps in the depths of winter to obey Charles V.'s call to Augsburg. The excitement of the public was great at his departure, and Aretino describes how his house was besieged for the sketches and designs he left behind him. For nearly forty years Titian was employed by the House of Hapsburg. He had been working for Charles since 1530, and when the Emperor abdicated, his employment by Philip II. lasted till his death. The palace inventory of 1686 contained seventy-six Titians, and though probably not all were genuine, yet an immense number were really by him, and the gallery, even now, is richer in his works than any other. The great hall of the Pardo must have been a wonderful sight, with Titian's finest portrait of himself in the midst, and the magnificent portraits and sacred and allegorical pieces which he continued from this time forward to contribute to it. In this year, which was the last before Charles's abdication, and during this visit to South Germany, he painted the great equestrian portrait of the Emperor on the field of Mühlberg, and two years later came the first of his many portraits of Philip II. The face, in the first sketch, is laid in with a sort of fury of impressionism, and in the parade portrait the sitter is realised as a man of great distinction. Ugly and sensual as he is, we never tire of looking at Titian's conception--a full length of distinguished mien rendered attractive by magnificent colour. Everything in it lives, and the slender, aristocratic hands are, as Morelli says, a whole biography in themselves.