passing between these men. Angelo scorned Raphael's retinue of admiring students, who often attended him when he went abroad. "There you go, like an officer with his posse!" Angelo is credited with having said as he met Raphael in the street. "Yes, and you-like the executioner, alone," Raphael replied. And thus it was: the handsome young artist, surrounded by friends, making no enemies-unless Angelo be considered one -on the one hand; the other, with his face furrowed with care and anxiety, repelling many by his abrupt manner, solitary and alone.

Leo X. commissioned Raphael to draw cartoons for tapestries to be hung in the Sistine Chapel. They pictured ten acts of the Apostles and were sent to Flanders to be woven in silk, wool, and gold. One year was consumed in making them. On special occasions they were hung in this beautiful chapel. However, in 1527 Rome was sacked and these tapestries were stolen. An attempt was made to extract the gold threads in them by burning the curtain. The experiment with one proved unsuccessful. From one to another they exchanged hands and were at last recovered, faded and shorn of their earlier beauty.

Raphael's fame rests largely upon the two Madonnas by which he is generally known: the Madonna of the Chair and the Sistine Madonna. For years he sought in vain for a model that would personify his ideal of the mother and child. At last, late one afternoon, far in the country, he saw a woman with her two children, one in her arms, the other at her knee. Snatching the cover of a wine cask, he sketched the picture with a few lines, then hurried home to fill it out. The result was the famous Madonna of the Chair. This typifies tender motherhood, the human element being particularly emphasized.

The last painting finished by Raphael was his Sistine Madonna. It was painted for a banner, but was used as an altar piece. In this the spiritual element is predominant. As the curtains are drawn back, the Mother is seen advancing on the clouds, offering her Child to the world, quite conscious of the trials before him. It is said that the two little cherubs were not orginally in the picture, but were added by the artist after seeing two little boys leaning forward over the railing before his picture.

CHAPTER VII.

CORREGGIO, THE FAUN OF THE RENAISSANCE.

Antonio Allegri da Correggio was born in 1494. His life passed very quietly in northern Italy. He traveled little and lived in but three towns-Correggio, his birthplace and by whose name he is generally known; Modena, whither his family removed when the plague broke out in Correggio, and Parma, where he did his best work. Critics have sometimes tried to show that his painting was influenced by some of the great Renaissance masters, but it is certain that he never saw them and probably never saw their productions.

While a boy he studied with his uncle, but the uncle was such an indifferent painter that he quickly outstripped him and developed his own native genius. When but nineteen he received his first important commission-to paint the Madonna of San Francisco for a monastery in Correggio. One hundred ducats of gold were paid the young artist, and how well he executed his early undertaking we may still see if we visit the Dresden gallery.

In 1518 Allegri went to Parma, the art center for that part of Italy. The town was important, lying on the direct route north and south; it possessed much natural beauty, with its varied aspect of hills, plains, and flowing rivers. Several churches and convents in the vicinity offered a field for the young artist's abilities.

Three qualities are characteristic of Correggio's paintings: his mastery of foreshortening and chiaroscuro, and the joy of his characters, be they men or angels. By foreshortening we mean representing objects in a slant position, so that on a plane surface one appears to be farther front than another; chiaroscuro refers to the use of light and shadow. His use of light and shade has probably never been excelled. More apparent to the average beholder is the happiness imprinted upon his faces. His Madonnas are not lost in thought-his angels not

pensive; they are all jubilant, smiling, happy, finding sufficient joy in living.

Correggio was a simple soul who did not attempt to fathom the mysteries of the universe; he was not despairing over a world that needed reform, like Angelo; he was not feverishly searching in a laboratory for some secret that might reveal the wonders of the world about him, like Leonardo. Undisturbed with the turmoil of this life and unconcerned about the next, he loved beauty and painted it. His women are beautiful women; his angels, joyous angels who bear glad tidings.

In Parma Allegri's first commission was to decorate the chief room of a convent. The religious fervor of mediaeval years had passed and we do not find the abbess selecting sacred subjects for her frescoes. The ceiling was painted to represent an arbor; trellises were heavy with vines, and here and there clusters of grapes seemed to hang down. All lines converged at the center, where the family arms of the abbess were painted. Through the trellis openings were left at regular intervals, and in these chubby Cupids played. The whole was finished by a series of paintings set in semi-circular spaces, these being filled in with pictures of Athena, Hera, Dionysus and other Greek deities. Finally over the great fireplace he painted a large picture of Diana riding in her chariot, drawn by snow-white steeds. Greek love of life and beauty permeated the entire room and made it most attractive.

The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine is probably best known of his easel pictures. The legends connected with this saint are still popular. Left an orphan when little more than a child, her people wished her to form a marriage alliance, but the maiden found none of her suitors to her liking. The situation preyed upon her mind, and one night she dreamed that the mother of Christ came to her with the child in her arms. The baby slipped a ring on Catherine's finger, which was still there when she awoke. Satisfied that this tokened a symbolical union of her soul with the love and purity of the infant Christ, Catherine gave herself up to a religious life. Many times the story has been told on canvas, but Correggio's conception is most tender and beautiful.

Probably the most wonderful Christmas picture that has

ever been produced is Correggio's Holy Night. The birth of Christ has been a favorite theme with artists-especially those of the early Italian Renaissance; but the simplicity and joy of Correggio's Nativity has never been surpassed. The Christchild lies in a hay-filled manger, pillowed on his mother's arm. Behind her are shepherds, and still farther in the background the eternal hills over which the first light of morning breaks. Light emanating from the child illumines the stable and causes the shepherdess standing near to shield her eyes from such brilliancy. Overhead a group of happy angels proclaim the joyful news of a prophecy fulfilled. This picture is also preserved today in the Dresden gallery.

"To Correggio nature had no hidden meaning; he saw her and loved her, and put his whole soul into transferring her sensuous beauty to canvas. Tradition says that he covered his canvas with gold before beginning his picture, that the landscape setting might sparkle and glisten with that golden-green luster so noticeable in many of his pictures. There is a fascination in his wonderful display of color equal to that of the rainbow tints; he never startles, but soothes, as the ripple of the little stream over the pebbles soothes the tired mind. He awakens no passion; inspires no intense longing; gives no intellectual stimulus, for with him to be alive is joy enough."

TITIAN.

The greatest painters of the Renaissance were Angelo, Raphael, Leonardo, Correggio, and lastly, Titian. Each had contributed his special perfections-accurate lines, mastery of light and shade, scientific knowledge allied with art, etc., and it was now left for Titian to unite many of these qualities and add his own superb use of color.

Born in 1477, Titian lived until 1576, painting almost until the end. Even then he was carried off by the plague which swept down upon Venice, claiming 40,000 victims. Otherwise it would appear that Titian might have passed his centenary. During this hundred years many events of mighty bearing upon the future transpired. In the year of his birth, Caxton printed his first book in England; when 15 years of age, 1 Pictures and Their Painters, 133.

Columbus discovered America and added another world to that of the ancients. Later Charles V. became emperor and Spain reached her widest expansion; Luther posted his ninetyfive theses and created such a stir that men still feel the effects of his religious movement. Finally, the Netherlands asserted their independence from the hated tyranny of Spain and established their own government. Surely this was a great century for a man of genius to live through. Frequently men's lives are so brief that they catch at best but a glimpse of the vast plan of the universe. For this reason it is gratifying to come now and then upon one stronger than his fellowmen, who pauses a little longer and encircles with his vision a little wider horizon.

Titian was born in Cadore-in the mountains which divide Italy from the Austrian Tyrol. Rugged and wild is nature in this region; ragged peaks, bare rocks, deep caverns, precipitous gorges and rushing streams were imprinted upon the boy's mind and pictured by the mature man. From infancy he displayed a genius for drawing, and a legend still lives on in Cadore that as a child Titian crushed flowers and from their juices painted a Madonna. At the age of nine he was sent to Venice to study with his uncle, who appears to have been a worker in mosaic. The greater part of his life was spent in this Queen City of the Adriatic, yet throughout his years he occasionally visited the little village, seventy miles north of Venice, where his early childhood had been passed.

In the periods we have been studying there were no such institutions as we have today in the way of art schools, where young aspirants may learn from experienced teachers and artists exhibit their productions. On the contrary, youths studied with some master in the locality or in the nearest art center, and established artists, as a rule, came under the patronage of a prince or duke who ordinarily maintained a court and wished to bring about his court men gifted in a variety of ways. Such protection and patronage was almost essential, particularly if the artist did not possess independent means— and few did. It is necessary to remember this in order to understand the persistence of one like Titian in seeking the favor of those in power. Unlike Rembrandt, Titian had a