Fate has dealt less unkindly with Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese than with Giorgione.  The works of these artists, in whom the Venetian Renaissance attained completion, have been preserved in large numbers and in excellent condition.  Chronologically speaking, Titian, the contemporary of Giorgione, precedes Tintoretto, and Tintoretto is somewhat earlier than Veronese.[281] But for the purpose of criticism the three painters may be considered together as the representatives of three marked aspects in the fully developed Venetian style.

Tintoretto, called by the Italians the thunderbolt of painting, because of his vehement impulsiveness and rapidity of execution, soars above his brethren by the faculty of pure imagination.  It was he who brought to its perfection the poetry of chiaroscuro, expressing moods of passion and emotion by brusque lights, luminous half-shadows, and semi-opaque darkness, no less unmistakably than Beethoven by symphonic modulations.  He too engrafted on the calm and natural Venetian manner something of the Michael Angelesque sublimity, and sought to vary by dramatic movement the romantic motives of his school.  In his work, more than in that of his contemporaries, Venetian art ceased to be decorative and idyllic.

Veronese elevated pageantry to the height of serious art.  His domain is noonday sunlight ablaze on sumptuous dresses and Palladian architecture.  Where Tintoretto is dramatic, he is scenic.  Titian, in a wise harmony, without either the AEschylean fury of Tintoretto, or the material gorgeousness of Veronese, realised an ideal of pure beauty.  Continuing the traditions of Bellini and Giorgione, with a breadth of treatment, and a vigour of well-balanced faculties peculiar to himself, Titian gave to colour in landscape and the human form a sublime yet sensuous poetry no other painter in the world has reached.

Tintoretto and Veronese are, both of them, excessive.  The imagination of Tintoretto is too passionate and daring; it scathes and blinds like lightning.  The sense of splendour in Veronese is overpoweringly pompous.  Titian’s exquisite humanity, his large and sane nature, gives proper value to the imaginative and the scenic elements of the Venetian style, without exaggerating either.  In his masterpieces thought, colour, sentiment, and composition—­the spiritual and technical elements of art—­exist in perfect balance; one harmonious tone is given to all the parts of his production, nor can it be said that any quality asserts itself to the injury of the rest.  Titian, the Sophocles of painting, has infused into his pictures the spirit of music, the Dorian mood of flutes and soft recorders, making power incarnate in a form of grace.