Palazzo Belvedere

TITIAN'S studio. A painting of Danae with a curtain before it.TITIAN,MICHAEL ANGELO, and GIORGIO VASARI.

So you have left at last your still lagoons,Your City of Silence floating in the sea,And come to us in Rome.

TITIAN.I come to learn,But I have come too late. I should have seenRome in my youth, when all my mind was openTo new impressions. Our Vasari hereLeads me about, a blind man, groping darklyAmong the marvels of the past. I touch them,But do not see them.

There are things in RomeThat one might walk bare-footed here from VeniceBut to see once, and then to die content.

TITIAN.I must confess that these majestic ruinsOppress me with their gloom. I feel as oneWho in the twilight stumbles among tombs,And cannot read the inscriptions carved upon them.

I felt so once; but I have grown familiarWith desolation, and it has becomeNo more a pain to me, but a delight.

TITIAN.I could not live here. I must have the sea,And the sea-mist, with sunshine interwovenLike cloth of gold; must have beneath my windowsThe laughter of the waves, and at my doorTheir pattering footsteps, or I am not happy.

Then tell me of your city in the sea,Paved with red basalt of the Paduan hills.Tell me of art in Venice. Three great names,Giorgione, Titian, and the Tintoretto,Illustrate your Venetian school, and sendA challenge to the world. The first is dead,But Tintoretto lives.

TITIAN.And paints with firesSudden and splendid, as the lightning paintsThe cloudy vault of heaven.

GIORGIO.Does he still keepAbove his door the arrogant inscriptionThat once was painted there,--"The color of Titian,With the design of Michael Angelo"?

TITIAN.Indeed, I know not. 'T was a foolish boast,And does no harm to any but himself.Perhaps he has grown wiser.

When you twoAre gone, who is there that remains behindTo seize the pencil falling from your fingers?

GIORGIO.Oh there are many hands upraised alreadyTo clutch at such a prize, which hardly waitFor death to loose your grasp,--a hundred of them;Schiavone, Bonifazio, Campagnola,Moretto, and Moroni; who can count them,Or measure their ambition?

TITIAN.When we are goneThe generation that comes after usWill have far other thoughts than ours. Our ruinsWill serve to build their palaces or tombs.They will possess the world that we think ours,And fashion it far otherwise.

I hearYour son Orazio and your nephew MarcoMentioned with honor.

TITIAN.Ay, brave lads, brave lads.But time will show. There is a youth in Venice,One Paul Cagliari, called the Veronese,Still a mere stripling, but of such rare promiseThat we must guard our laurels, or may lose them.

These are good tidings; for I sometimes fearThat, when we die, with us all art will die.'T is but a fancy. Nature will provideOthers to take our places. I rejoiceTo see the young spring forward in the race,Eager as we were, and as full of hopeAnd the sublime audacity of youth.

TITIAN.Men die and are forgotten. The great worldGoes on the same. Among the myriadsOf men that live, or have lived, or shall liveWhat is a single life, or thine or mime,That we should think all nature would stand stillIf we were gone? We must make room for others.

And now, Maestro, pray unveil your pictureOf Danae, of which I hear such praise.

That Acrisius did wellTo lock such beauty in a brazen towerAnd hide it from all eyes.

TITIAN.The model trulyWas beautiful.

And more, that you were present,And saw the showery Jove from high OlympusDescend in all his splendor.

TITIAN.From your lipsSuch words are full of sweetness.

You have caughtThese golden hues from your Venetian sunsets.

TITIAN.Possibly.

Or from sunshine through a showerOn the lagoons, or the broad Adriatic.Nature reveals herself in all our arts.The pavements and the palaces of citiesHint at the nature of the neighboring hills.Red lavas from the Euganean quarriesOf Padua pave your streets; your palacesAre the white stones of Istria, and gleamReflected in your waters and your pictures.And thus the works of every artist showSomething of his surroundings and his habits.The uttermost that can be reached by colorIs here accomplished. Warmth and light and softnessMingle together. Never yet was fleshPainted by hand of artist, dead or living,With such divine perfection.

TITIAN.I am gratefulFor so much praise from you, who are a master;While mostly those who praise and those who blameKnow nothing of the matter, so that mainlyTheir censure sounds like praise, their praise like censure.

Wonderful! wonderful! The charm of colorFascinates me the more that in myselfThe gift is wanting. I am not a painter.

GIORGIO.Messer Michele, all the arts are yours,Not one alone; and therefore I may ventureTo put a question to you.

Well, speak on.

GIORGIO.Two nephews of the Cardinal FarneseHave made me umpire in dispute between themWhich is the greater of the sister arts,Painting or sculpture. Solve for me the doubt.

Sculpture and painting have a common goal,And whosoever would attain to it,Whichever path he take, will find that goalEqually hard to reach.

GIORGIO.No doubt, no doubt;But you evade the question.

When I standIn presence of this picture, I concedeThat painting has attained its uttermost;But in the presence of my sculptured figuresI feel that my conception soars beyondAll limit I have reached.

GIORGIO.You still evade me.

Giorgio Vasari, I have often saidThat I account that painting as the bestWhich most resembles sculpture. Here before usWe have the proof. Behold those rounded limbs!How from the canvas they detach themselves,Till they deceive the eye, and one would say,It is a statue with a screen behind it!

TITIAN.Signori, pardon me; but all such questionsSeem to me idle.

Idle as the wind.And now, Maestro, I will say once moreHow admirable I esteem your work,And leave you, without further interruption.

TITIAN.Your friendly visit hath much honored me.

GIOROIO.Farewell.

If the Venetian painters knewBut half as much of drawing as of color,They would indeed work miracles in art,And the world see what it hath never seen.