There is an amusing page, in doggerel verse, which I remember to have
read some years ago. I trust the translator will pardon the liberty
I am taking in quoting it. It reports a perhaps imaginary conversation
between Velasquez and an Italian painter in Rome. 'The Master' in this
rhyme is Velasquez.
The Master stiffly bowed his figure tall
And said, 'For Raphael, to speak the truth,
--I always was plain-spoken from my youth,--
I cannot say I like his works at all.'
'Well,' said the other, 'if you can run down
So great a man, I really cannot see
What you can find to like in Italy;
To him we all agree to give the crown.'
Velasquez answered thus: 'I saw in Venice
The true test of the good and beautiful;
First, in my judgment, ever stands that school,
And Titian first of all Italian men is.'
Velasquez in Rome was already a ripening artist, whose vision of the
world was quite uncoloured and unshaped by the medieval tradition.
Raphael's pictures with their superhumanly lovely saints, their
unworldly feeling, and their supernaturally clear light, doubtless
imparted pleasure, but not a sympathetic inspiration.
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