William James on Aesthetics

"I remember seeing an English couple sit for more than an hour on a piercing February day in the Academy at Venice before the celebrated 'Assumption' of Titian; and when I, after being chased from room to room by the cold, concluded to get into the sunshine as fast as possible and let the pictures go, but before leaving drew reverently near to them to learn with what superior forms of susceptibility they might be endowed, all I overheard was the woman's voice murmuring: 'What a depracatory expression her face wears!  What self-abnegation!  How unworthy she feels of the honor she is receiving!"  Their honest hearts had been kept warm all the time by a glow of spurious sentiment that would have fairly made old Titian sick."

Tell me wikipedia: how long did Titian live?

Titian, of course, was the great 16th century Venetian painter.

He is in the news of late because the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, recently compared himself to Titian. Brown was apparently just trying to say that one can keep learning throughout life, and one can end up doing one's best work late -- even perhaps as old as ninety. As a comparison, though, it sounds like Brown was a bit full-of-himself, and it isn't surprising that the head of the Tories, David Cameron, pounced.

Cameron may have hurt himself in the process. Here's a link to what a 1970s American radio personality would have called "the rest of the story".

As you'll see if you follow that link, the good name of wikipedia has become entangled in the brawl over Titian.

This weekend's issue of the Financial Times runs a huffy editorial on the subject of wikipedia. "Any attempt to turn mob opinion into the test for truth is pernicious. That a thought might be popularly believed does not make it true," and so forth.

Valid enough, but still huffy. As for Titian's age at his death, it doesn't seem that anyone is quite sure.

Deal with it.