Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art | Page 7

to complete the copy in less time than he at first
demanded, tendering at the same time his head as the punishment if he
failed. The offer was not accepted, and execution was performed on
Titian, accompanied with the most distressing attitudes and distortions
of El Mudo.
TITIAN'S OLD AGE.
Titian continued to paint to the last year of his long life, and many
writers, fond of the marvellous, assert that his faculties and his powers
continued to the last. Vasari, who saw him in 1566 for the last time,
said he "could no longer recognize Titian in Titian." Lanzi says, "There
remains in the church of S. Salvatore, one of these pictures (executed
towards the close of his life), of the Annunciation, which attracts the
attention only from the name of the master. Yet when he was told by
some one that it was not, or at least did not appear to have been
executed by his hand, he was so much irritated that, in a fit of senile

indignation, he seized his pencil and inscribed upon it, 'Tizianus fecit,
fecit.' Still the most experienced judges are agreed that much may be
learned, even from his latest works, in the same manner as the poets
pronounce judgment upon the Odyssey, the product of old age, but still
by Homer."
MONUMENT TO TITIAN.
A monument to Titian, from the studio of the brothers Zandomenghi,
was erected in Venice in 1852; and the civil, ecclesiastical, and military
authorities were present at the ceremony of inauguration. It represents
Titian, surrounded by figures impersonating the Fine Arts; below are
impersonations of the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. The basement
is adorned with five bas-reliefs, representing as many celebrated
paintings by the great artist.
HORACE VERNET.
Among all the artists of our day, is one standing almost alone, and
singularly characterized in many respects. He is entirely wanting in that
lofty religious character which fills with pureness and beauty the works
of the early masters; he has not the great and impressive historical
qualities of the school of Raffaelle, nor the daring sublimity of Michael
Angelo; he has not the rich luxury of color that renders the works of the
great Venetians so gorgeous, nor even that sort of striking reality which
makes the subjects rendered by the Flemish masters incomparably
life-like. Yet he is rich in qualities deeply attractive and interesting to
the people, especially the French people, of our own day. He displays
an astonishing capacity and rapidity of execution, an almost
unparalleled accuracy of memory, a rare life and motion on the canvass,
a vigorous comprehension of the military tactics of the time, a
wonderful aptitude at rendering the camp and field potent subjects for
the pencil, notwithstanding the regularity of movement, and the
unpicturesque uniformity of costume demanded by the military science
of our day. Before a battle-piece, of Horace Vernet (and only his
battle-pieces are his masterpieces), the crowd stands breathless and
horrified at the terrible and bloody aspect of war; while the military
connoisseur admires the ability and skill of the feats of arms, so

faithfully rendered that he forgets he is not looking at real soldiers in
action. In the landscapes and objects of the foreground or background,
there are not that charm of color and aërial depth and transparency in
which the eye revels, yet there is a hard vigorous actuality which adds
to the force and energy of the actors, and strengthens the idea of
presence at the battle, without attracting or charming away the mind
from the terrible inhumanities principally represented. No poetry, no
romance, no graceful and gentle beauty; but the stern dark reality as it
might be written in an official bulletin, or related in a vigorous, but
cold and accurate, page of history. Such is the distinguishing talent of
Horace Vernet--talent sufficient, however, to make his pictures the
attractive centres of crowds at the Louvre Exhibitions, and to make
himself the favorite of courts and one of the illustrissimi of Europe.
The Vernets have been a family of painters during four generations.
The great-grandfather of Horace was a well-known artist at Avignon, a
hundred and fifty years ago. His son and pupil, Claude Joseph Vernet,
was the first marine painter of his time; and occupies, with his works
alone, an entire apartment of the French Gallery at the Louvre, besides
great numbers of sea-pieces and landscapes belonging to private
galleries. He died in 1789, but his son and pupil, Antoine Charles
Horace Vernet, who had already during two years sat by his side in the
Royal Academy, continued the reputation of the family during the
Consulate and Empire. He was particularly distinguished for
cavalry-battles, hunting scenes, and other incidents in which the horse
figured largely as actor. In some of these pictures the hand