First of all, as has been shown, it was the Church that called for pictures--to represent their saints and to enforce biblical legends. Painting became more and more popular. People became more and more educated to understand painting, until at last they wanted their domestic and social lives depicted. Also they wanted to hang these pictures in their homes. Pictures were neither so rare nor so expensive in those days as they are now, and people could afford to buy them--even the lower and the middle classes. Immediately there sprang up painters who satisfied the demand. In those days there were no academies and no salons wherein artists fought to outdo one another as to the size and eccentricity of their pictures; there were no vulgar struggles of that kind. Painters simply supplied to the best of their ability the wants of the people. Naturally, the public required small pictures, suitable to the size of their houses. Therefore, they needed gay and beautiful colour, and pictures in which the subjects did not obtrude themselves forcibly. Thus, in the natural course of events pageantry found less favour, and pictures of social and domestic life found more. Religious subjects were rather deserted. By the aid of books people could learn all the stories of the Bible. Besides, they were not at that period in a devotional or contrite mood. They were too happy and full of life to feel any pressing need for religion. Painting took much the same position with the Venetians as music has with us now. The fashion for triumphal marches and the clashing of cymbals in processional pictures had died out, and the vogue of symphonies and sonatas had come in. No one at that time seemed quite capable of satisfying the public taste. Carpaccio, whose subtle yet brilliant colouring would have exactly suited it, never undertook these subjects. Giovanni Bellini attempted them; but his style was too severe for the gaiety of the period. However, there was not long to wait. Soon appeared a man who told the public what they wanted and gave it to them. He swept away conventions and revolutionised art all over the world. He was a genius--Giorgione. Pupil of Bellini and Carpaccio, he combined the qualities of both. When he was quite a youth painters all over the world followed his methods. Curiously enough, there are not a dozen of this great master's works preserved at the present day. The bulk of them were frescoes which long ago disappeared. The few that remain are quite enough to make one realise what a great master he was. The picture which most appeals to me is an altar-piece of the Virgin and Child at Castelfranco. It is painted in the pure Giorgione spirit. St. George in armour is at one side, resting on a spear which seems to be coming right out of the picture; while on the other side there is a monk, and in the background are a banner of rich brocade and a small landscape.