270. "NOLI ME TANGERE!"
Titian (Venetian: 1477-1576). See 4.
A picture of the evensong of nature and of the evening of a life's tragedy. "The hues and harmonies of evening" are upon the distant hills and plain; and whilst the shadows fall upon the middle slopes, there falls too "the awful shadow of some unseen Power" upon the repentant woman who has been keeping her vigil in the peaceful solitude; at the sound of her name she has turned from her weeping and fallen forward on her knees towards him whom she now knows to be her master. "The impetuosity with which she has thrown herself on her knees in shown by the fluttering drapery of her sleeve,[127] which is still buoyed up by the air; thus with a true painter's art telling the action of the previous moment" (Quarterly Review, October 1888). She stretches out her hand to touch him, but is checked by his words; as Christ, who is represented with a hoe in his hand because she had first supposed him to be the gardener, bids her forbear: "Touch me not," "noli me tangere," "for I am not yet ascended to my Father:" it is not on this side of the hills that the troubled soul can enter into the peace of forgiveness.
This beautiful picture was bequeathed to the National Gallery by Samuel Rogers. It is usually ascribed to Titian's earlier or "Giorgionesque" period. "The Magdalen is, appropriately enough, of the same type as the exquisite golden-blond courtesans—or, if you will, models—who constantly appear and re-appear in this period of Venetian art" (C. Phillips: The Earlier Work of Titian, p. 52).