338 PRÆTERITA-II

foolishly regards it only as a change coming to pass in the Louvre on the instant, and does not recognize it as the result of growth: the fact being, I suppose, that the habit of looking for true colour in nature had made me sensitive to the modesty and dignity of hues in painting also, before possessing no charm for me.

“Aug. 17th.-I have had a change wrought in me, and a strong one, by this visit to the Louvre, and know not how far it may go, chiefly in my full understanding of Titian, John Bellini, and Perugino, and being able to abandon everything for them; or rather, being unable to look at anything else.”

103. I allow the following technical note only for proof of the length I had got to. There shall be no more of the kind let into Præterita.

“1252 (‘The Entombment’) is the finest Titian in the gallery,-glowing, simple, broad, and grand. It is to be opposed to 1251 (‘The Flagellation’), in which the shades are brown instead of grey, the outlines strong brown lines, the draperies broken up by folds, the lights very round and vivid, and foiled by deep shades, the flesh forms, the brightest lights, and the draperies subdued.

“In 1252 every one of these conditions is reversed. Even the palest flesh is solemn and dark, in juxtaposition with golden-white drapery; all the masses broad and flat, the shades grey, the outlines chaste and severe. It may be taken as an example of the highest dignity of expression wrought out by mere grandeur of colour and composition.

“I found myself finally in the Louvre, fixed by this Titian, and turning to it, and to the one (picture), exactly opposite, John and Gentile Bellini, by John Bellini.¹ I was a long time hesitating between this

¹ [No. 1156, now called “Portraits of Two Men” and ascribed to Gentile Bellini.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]