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How to Study Pictures
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pictured; for Holbein loved things of delicate and skilful workmanship, and left many designs for scabbards, goblets, and goldsmith’s work.

Yet, compared with all the finish and detail of Holbein’s picture, how large, simple, and grand is the composition of Titan’s! Holbein’s aim was to put in everything that was without injury to the total effect; Titan’s aim was to leave out everything but what was essential. Holbein’s picture is a triumph of well-controlled working-out of detail; Titian’s of simplicity.

Portrait of Georg Gyze, by Holbein

And, as 1 have said, while the Holbein is simply and appropriately dignified, the Titan is majestically grand. Turn again to “The Man with the Glove,” shut out with your fingers first one of the hands, then the other, and then the sweep of shirt, and notice each time how the balance and dignity of the composition are thereby destroyed; for its magic consists in the exact placing of the lighter spots against the general darkness of the whole. By this time we realize that the fascination of this
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