A fine period of painting does not come in a day, nor does it end in a day; and, although the universal interest in the Venetian school dies with Titian and Tintoretto, it does not die unnoticed. The torch of art flickered up many times in Venice before it was finally extinguished. The men who came immediately after Tintoretto had not the strength to start off on any new lines. They simply fell back on variations of the earlier masters, showing much of the masters' weaknesses, but few of their great qualities. Some even were so inartistic as to attempt to pass off their pictures, on ignorant people, as Titians and Giorgiones. However, before the Republic disappeared there were two or three men who took the first rank among the painters of the period, provincial artists, men whose art was sufficiently like her own to be readily understood, such as Paul Veronese. The provinces were not declining so rapidly as Venice was. They were less troubled by the approaching storm. Men there led simple, healthy lives; Spanish manners were long in reaching the provinces, and, when they did, the people were slow to succumb. Men in the provinces had stamina, simplicity, and courage with which to meet the new order of things. They combined ceremony and splendour with childlike naturalness. Consequently, the works of Paul Veronese delighted the Venetians. The more fashionable and ceremonious private life in the city became, the more were the people charmed with his simple rendering. [Illustration: A QUIET RIO] Gradually the taste of the Venetians turned towards pictures in humble quarters--in the provincial towns and in the country. In the Middle Ages the country was so upset that it was not safe for people to venture out of the city; but with the advance of civilisation this state of affairs was altered. People began to delight in country life. The aristocracy took villas in the provinces, and the poorer people wanted representations of them in their houses. The painters of the period, Palma and Bonifacio, began to add pastoral backgrounds to their works. But the first great landscape painter was Jacopo Bassano. His treatment of light and atmosphere was masterly, and his colouring was jewel-like and brilliant. It was Bassano who started that great Spanish school which was to culminate in Velasquez. Venice did not produce many great painters in the eighteenth century--only three or four. The city itself remained unchanged: it was just as beautiful, still the most beautiful and luxurious city in the world: it was the people who changed. They became apathetic, placid, and drifting, perfectly contented with one another and with their lots in life, never trying to better themselves in any way. There were no difficulties, no problems to be solved. People were just as gay as they were serious, just as much interested in paintings as they were in politics. This was a vegetable period.