The reason for excluding such works is their over-pathetic or over-dramatic quality. The argument applies especially to the Adulteress before Christ at Glasgow. Corroborative technical evidence against this group may be found in L. Venturi’s excellent monograph.
CHAPTER VIII.—TITIAN AND THE VENETIAN RENAISSANCE
On the Venetian Renaissance in general we have the works cited at the head of Notes for Chapter VII and for biographies and lists D. V. Hadeln, new ed. Ridolfi, Le Maraviglie dell’ Arte, Berlin, 1914. A brief survey by the late Kenyon Cox, in Concerning Painting, New York, 1917, pp. 98–132, is valuable.
[78]. Titian. Crowe and Cavalcaselle’s The Life and Times of Titian, in 2 vols., London, 1881, is still the fullest repository of information. Georg Gronau’s popular but carefully done Titian, London and New York, 1904, takes account of later documentary discoveries. As a painter’s analysis of technical aims Charles Rickett’s Titian, London, 1910, is noteworthy. Nearly all of Titian’s works are published in Klassiker der Kunst, No. III, Stuttgart, 1906. Several newly discovered pictures are reproduced in the recent volumes, 1918–22, of the Burlington Magazine, Art in America, and Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst.
[79]. Titian’s Age. All the available material on this disputed matter is offered by Mr. Herbert Cook and Dr. George Gronau in a controversy printed as appendices to Cook’s Giorgione, London, 1907. The early evidence is very conflicting.
| Writing | in | 1557 | Dolce implies | Titian | was | born | about | 1489 |
| „ | „ | 1566–7 | Vasari | „ | „ | „ | „ | 1489 |
| „ | „ | 1564 | A Spanish Envoy | „ | „ | „ | 1474 | |
| „ | „ | 1567 | A Spanish Consul | „ | „ | „ | 1482 | |
| „ | „ | 1571 | Titian himself | „ | „ | „ | „ | 1477 |
| „ | „ | 1584 | Borghini | „ | „ | „ | „ | 1478–9 |
Writing in 1545 and 1548 Titian refers to his old age and disabilities (Cook, p. 141 note), expressions more natural if he was sixty-eight and seventy-one than they would be if he were only fifty-six and fifty-nine.
Mr. Cook’s theory that Titian and his Spanish official friends grossly exaggerated his age to secure prompter remittances from the Emperor seems to me gratuitous and flimsy. Dr. Gronau convinces me that neither Dolce nor Vasari can be regarded as serious witnesses. L. Hourticq in La Jeunesse de Titien, Paris, 1919, adds next to nothing to Cook in maintaining the later date for Titian’s birth.
The whole weight of evidence points to the fact that Titian told the broad truth about his age, perhaps, indulging in a round number. I am sure he was well over ninety when he described himself as ninety-five in the letter of 1571, and that he died all but a centenarian.
[80]. Pietro d’Achiardi, Sebastiano de Piombo, Roma, 1908.