Читать книгу A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools - National Gallery (Great Britain) - Страница 22

School of Titian (Venetian). See under next picture.

The young man in the red velvet cap plays on the violoncello; the other on the oboe, of which only the reed is visible. The other three are vocalists. The master is keeping time, and is intent on the boy pupil. The young girl, with her hand on her husband's shoulder, is waiting to chime in, and looks far away the while to where the music takes her. "In Titian's portraits you always see the soul, – faces 'which pale passion loves.' Look at the Music-piece by Titian – it is 'all ear,' – the expression is evanescent as the sounds – the features are seen in a sort of dim chiaroscuro, as if the confused impressions of another sense intervened – and you might easily suppose some of the performers to have been engaged the night before in

Perhaps it is indeed a travelling party of musicians practising for a serenade. Certainly one thinks of this picture as one reads of a supper party at Titian's house. "Before the tables were set out, we spent the time in looking at the lifelike figures in the excellent paintings of which the house was full, and in discussing the real beauty and charm of the garden, which was a pleasure and a wonder to every one. It is situated in the extreme part of Venice upon the sea, and from it may be seen the pretty little island of Murano, and other beautiful places. This part of the sea, as soon as the sun went down, swarmed with gondolas adorned with beautiful women, and resounded with varied harmonies – the music of voices and instruments till midnight" (Priscianese, describing a visit to Titian in 1540: cited in Heath's Titian, "Great Artists" series, p. 53).