Part 16

Even were this all so, and I cannot see that it is in the least, what would be proved? To compare one doubtful work to another of a similar nature does not, as I have said above, prove the authorship of either. Furthermore, though one can find strong likenesses to the Berlin head in the true works by Giorgione, in these same works one cannot find any likeness whatever to the Doetsch portrait. To compare this overemphasised portrait, this person who seems half brigand and half Shylock, to the sad, poetical-looking man at Buda-Pesth, or to the clean, vigorous, manly youth in Berlin, is going pretty far, and the limit is plainly over-stepped in the endeavour to attach to the picture a value it does not possess by giving to it the name of one of the greatest artists.

For the painter of the Crespi Portrait of a Lady we shall do better to look in the direction of Titian than Giorgione. The owner, Signor Crespi, believes, according to Berenson, that Titian was the author, and certainly the likeness which the figure bears to other women by Titian, and the initials T. V. make it difficult to admit any other origin. Neither ecstasies nor comparisons serve to show any likeness to Giorgione’s work.

Of all the portraits attributed to Giorgione the finest by far is the one owned by the Hon. Edward Wood of Temple Newsam. Attention was first drawn to this by Cook and his attribution has been accepted by every one. It is a masterpiece of the greatest beauty (Plate LXVIII).

We have now reviewed the most important criticisms that have been passed on Giorgione’s work; and though it is only too evident that as yet there is no really sound common standard by which to govern our judgments, we can come very near to forming one if we accept the more sober part of the work of these criticisms and disregard their more extravagant and hypothetical attributions.[76] The following list, I venture to think, embraces works differing much less among themselves in regard to style than the lists of the critics that I have discussed.

[Illustration: PLATE LXVIII.]

1. Vienna—David (copy).

2. Venice—Fondaco dei Tedeschi (fragment still visible, but compare Zanetti’s engraving).

3. Venice—Chiesa di San Rocco, Christ carrying the Cross (much damaged).

4. Venice, Giovanelli Palace, Soldier and Woman, known as The Tempest.

5. Castelfranco, Madonna Enthroned.

6. Dresden, Venus.

7. Kingston Lacy, Judgment of Solomon (unfinished).

8. Vienna, Three Philosophers.

9. Buda-Pesth, Birth of Paris (fragment of a copy).

10. Florence, Uffizi, Judgment of Solomon.

11. Florence, Uffizi, Fire-test of Moses.

12. Florence, Uffizi, Knight of Malta.

13. Boston, Mass., Mrs. Gardner’s Collection (formerly Vicenza), Head of Christ.

14. London, National Gallery, Study for the San Liberale of the Castelfranco picture.

15. London, National Gallery, Epiphany.

16. London, Mr. Benson, Holy Family.

17. London, Lord Allandale, Shepherd’s Offering.

18. Temple Newsam, Hon. Mr. Wood. Portrait of a Man.

19. St. Petersburg, Judith.

20. Berlin, Portrait of a Youth (?).

Excluding the last one as being open to doubt, nineteen pictures, two probably copies, remain as our heritage of this most noble painter’s work. With these nineteen in our mind, it becomes more evident than ever why such works as the Louvre Concert, the Borghese Lady, or the Doetsch Man are not to be thought of in connection with Giorgione’s name.

There yet remains something more to be said of Giorgione. I think that there are still some pictures to be added to this list. The first to which I desire to call attention is the so-called Gypsy Madonna in Vienna. This picture is spoken of by every one as a Titian, but the longer I study it the more strong becomes my conviction that Giorgione was the artist; that it is one of his early works; that it is one of the “many pictures of the Virgin” of which Vasari speaks. The Giorgione spirit seems to me to underlie the whole feeling just as the Giorgione technique underlies the completed performance, that is, wherever the repainting allows it to be seen (Plate LXIX).

Evidently, from the lack of decision of the drawing, the coarse modelling of the drapery, and the heavy, undetailed landscape the picture is an early work of the master, be he Titian or Giorgione. To my mind the likeness between this and unquestioned early Titians is a superficial one. This picture shows none of the ease that is a characteristic of even his early works, nor does it exhibit any of the dramatic quality, expressed either by the actions or in the faces of the figures, that is another most noticeable feature of his work. If, on the other hand, one seeks for similarities to Giorgione’s work, they are most readily found. Details and style coincide closely with his pictures. The shape of the Virgin’s head and the manner in which the hair is drawn over the brow are nearly identical with what one sees in the Uffizi panels or the Castelfranco picture. The sharply marked eyelids, the richly modelled mouth and long nose, are strongly resemblant to the same features in the Castelfranco Madonna, the Giovanelli Gypsy, the Uffizi panels, and the Knight of Malta.

[Illustration: PLATE LXIX.]

Notice, too, the large hand, the feet of the child with the strongly developed toes which are just what one finds in Giorgione’s works. So, also, the landscape with its plumelike trees, and the slim figure seated on the grass is such as one finds in many of his works, but not so often in those of Titian. Finally, and of more importance than separate details, is the fact that the peaceful spirit of the group, the undramatic, unTitianesque quality, is exactly what is most characteristic of Giorgione. Titian, when he painted the Christ Child, even in his earliest days, painted a figure more representing the infant Hercules than the Salvator Mundi. Invariably, He leaps about in his Mother’s arms, and though the small chubby face may be keenly intelligent, there is hardly ever a suggestion of the imaginative powers and prophetic instinct of the Reformer. It is here that Giorgione shows his very exceptional genius, for he was able to depict a purely human man child in such wise that were the figures cut from his canvases, no one could mistake them for mere ordinary offspring.

Giorgione used none of the affected graces or sentimentalities of Raphael, nor did he depend upon such weirdness as Leonardo chose; as a result, his figures are as much more satisfying to the inquiring intellect as a living fountain is compared with the mirage of the desert. His means are simple. There is no exaggeration of action, as in the Titian Child, but all is essentially delicate and infantine. There is no exaggeration of expression, but a slightly dreamy, far-away look as of powers still unwakened, and one feels, as before no other representations of the Child, that such as He might attain to even Calvary. Taken in connection with the agreement of the details, this spiritual similarity of the work to others that we know are by Giorgione must give him pause who should think to name Titian as the author.[77]

Another picture which, I believe, deserves more attention than has yet been given it hangs, under the name of Giovanni Bellini, in the _Museo Correr_ in Venice. The picture represents the dead Christ, seated on the edge of the tomb, upheld by three angels. In the background is a landscape, with a church on the right. It is painted on a panel about four feet high. The Anonimo Morelli says that in the year 1530 in the house of Gabriel Vendramin: “El Cristo morto sopra el sepolcro, con l’Anzolo che el sostenta, fu de man de Zorzi da Castelfranco, reconzato da Tiziano.” The picture in the Correr Museum represents this same scene, but there are three angels instead of one. This difference between the picture and the description need not make us hesitate to consider the question whether Giorgione was the author of the work, if there are other reasons to render such authorship possible.

Any one, however, who has used early books such as the Anonimo knows how very inaccurate the authors often were and any one who has studied Italian painting knows that to represent the dead Christ held by only one angel is entirely contrary to precedent and practice. The present condition of the work is such that it is impossible to say whether it was ever _raconzato da Tiziano_ or not. It is a mere wreck. That there are distinct resemblances to Bellini’s work is not to be denied, but, if I mistake not, there exist even stronger ones to that of Giorgione. A slight stiffness in drawing, a certain archaism in drapery, is just what one would expect to find in the work of Bellini’s pupil. In the modelling and action of the figures, however, there are evidences of an attempt at freedom of design such as are rare in Bellini’s work. Four works of Bellini occur at once as criteria for judging the quality of the one under discussion—the Pietà in the Brera, one in the Mond collection in London, one in Rimini, and one in the Berlin Gallery.[78] None of these show the slender, rather unmodelled hands of the Correr picture; none presents so vivid a picture of Death. In none except the one at Rimini are the secondary figures really supporting the Christ,—the body does not show, as in the Correr picture, the relaxation of death, and in the Rimini picture the angels are much more playfully treated than in the Correr panel. The Bellini pictures are deeply touching, but to me there seems an even nobler and more moving sentiment in the work which I fain would attribute to Giorgione, and it is just such a sentiment as the painter of the Vicenza Christ might have suggested.

The heads of the figures of the dead Christ in the works of Bellini are without exception represented as _asleep_. In the Correr picture one sees more than sleep in the closed eyes and drawn mouth of the Saviour. There is death—but death, the tragedy, so combined with a yearning, soul-compelling sadness, that the face can never be forgotten by whoso once has seen it, and this is spiritual life. Scarcely any other artist ever equalled Giorgione, and none certainly ever surpassed him, in the power of representing the members of the Holy Family. There are many fine presentations of Christ bearing the Cross, but none so imaginative as the Vicenza picture. For there we see in the sensitive face, the direct eye, and steady earnest mouth, the signs of completed power over self, while in the tear drop that sparkles on the cheek is the sign of suffering that broke the body, whose soul it could not quell—for neither brow nor eye are those of one who weeps. The Correr painting contains a similar double suggestion. Two details there are also which bear out the idea that Giorgione is the author. One is the technique which so far as can be seen is of the rich, smooth, carefully shaded kind, peculiar to Giorgione’s work. The other is the landscape in which the low horizon line and the plumy trees correspond closely to his certain works. Wreck though it be, and possibly only a copy of the original, it is worth study by students.[79]

A smaller, but fortunately much more perfectly preserved, work hangs in the London Gallery under the name of School of Giorgione. It represents a bearded man on a throne and other figures in an open landscape. Whoever, unafraid of finding something unexpected, looks at this picture with critical eye, will, I think, realise that it is not a school work, but by the master himself. It is very carefully wrought in design and execution, as a youthful work would be likely to be, and as the two Florence panels are. The rich clear colours and the bright sunshine spread over the scene, are such as are found in the Florence panels, the Kingston Lacy picture, those in Vienna, and the Virgin of Castelfranco. The landscape is typically Giorgionesque, closed in as it is in the foreground, and opening into a middle distance of rich meadows, enlivened here and there with tall steep-roofed houses. The rich detail and broad chiaroscuro find their counterpart over and over again in Giorgione’s work; and finally, who but Giorgione ever presented to our delighted eyes a scene so simple, so dreamlike, so poetic, so defined, and yet so difficult to understand? It is a dream picture, rendered with the utmost clearness of vision. It is only the masters who can do this—only Giorgione and Keats and such rare spirits who can put in terms for the ordinary plodding mortal to grasp, the evanescent visions of the mind.

Of very different character is the portrait of a youth in a large hat in the Vienna Gallery. Crowe and Cavalcaselle attribute this to Morto da Feltre. It was impossible for me to see the original when I was in Vienna, but study of an excellent photograph makes me doubt this attribution. If I mistake not, the picture might be a copy of a portrait by Giorgione. The treatment of the landscape is sufficient to show that Giorgione’s hand did not touch the work itself, but scarcely any other than Giorgione can have originated this grave sweet face with the steady eyes.

To close this necessarily unsatisfactory part of my subject, there is the etching by H. van der Borcht which quite possibly is copied from a lost Giorgione. It represents a woman seated upon a dead warrior, and below the figures are the words _Giorgione inv_.[80] It seems not unlikely that it preserves for us one of the frescoes long since faded from some palace wall in Venice. It is but the echo of a voice that is still, but even as such it means much.

If now my arguments, in the foregoing discussion, are based upon sound reason rather than upon theory, it results that the following are the works by which we must judge Giorgione’s genius, and that these must serve as a standard for further study of his work:

1. Vienna, David (copy).

2. Vienna, Three Philosophers.

3. Vienna, Gypsy Madonna.

4. Vienna, Portrait of a Youth (copy?).

5. Venice, Fondaco dei Tedeschi. (The engravings can be used in giving suggestions of Giorgione’s methods of composition.)

6. Venice, Chiesa di San Rocco, Christ carrying the Cross.

7. Venice, Giovanelli Palace, Soldier and Woman.

8. Venice, Correr Museum, Pietà (copy?).

9. Castelfranco, Madonna Enthroned.

10. Dresden, Venus.

11. Kingston Lacy, Judgment of Solomon.

12. Buda Pesth, Birth of Paris (copy).

13. Florence, Uffizi, Judgment of Solomon.

14. Florence, Uffizi, Fire-test of Moses.

15. Florence, Uffizi, Knight of Malta.

16. Boston, Mrs. Gardner, Head of Christ.

17. London, National Gallery, Study for figure of San Liberale.

18. London, National Gallery, Epiphany.

19. London, National Gallery, David and Solomon.

20. London, Mr. Beaumont (Lord Allandale), Shepherd’s Offering.

21. London, Mr. Benson, Holy Family.

22. St. Petersburg, Hermitage, Judith.

At first sight it may seem that there is more variety of style in these pictures than the works of any one artist would show, especially one who died young. There are, however, certain general considerations to be clearly remembered. Giorgione was born and grew up in a time of great discovery, when long-established thoughts and habits were rapidly changing, so that we should commit a serious error were we to expect him to paint the same subjects, or in the same manner, as his predecessors. His works would necessarily be different from theirs. He would naturally show greater variety and, owing to his youth, his style would not have become fixed. What is certain is that his contemporaries regarded him with the greatest admiration, so the best way to fit ourselves to judge him is to study the life of Venice in his day.

It is not much that is left us of the great man’s life work, but it suffices to show what he was, not only as a painter, but as a man; and why his influence was so great on his contemporaries, and why so long as the human heart stays young his spirit will continue to call loudly to it. That he was a perfect colourist, that is to say, that he understood how to juxtapose the rich oriental colours of the Venetian palette in such wise that each tint emphasised the effect of all the others, or that as a draughtsman he could adequately portray the images in his brain, does not explain the effect he has on those who care for him. These are merely technical qualities that are not difficult to acquire, and that many a man has possessed.

It is the spirit of Giorgione’s work that makes him what he is. He spoke in the simplest, broadest way to the deeper side of our nature. Not so imbued with the ceremonies of religion as his master Bellini, nor so given over to the full-blooded joy in the beauties of this world as his comrade Titian, he recognised that fanaticism or sensuality are equally spiritual death, and that the whole and perfect soul must be tempered in the fires of the heart, and cooled in the breezes of Nature. No such loveable Madonna had been painted as she of Castelfranco,—no purer presentation exists of the compelling beauty of the human figure than his Venus. Unabashed “he held both hands before the fire of life,” not warming first one and then the other, but with true poetic feeling combining every beauty that he perceived in one harmonious song.

Always steadily reaching for the same goal, this even-poised master did not one day paint such exalted figures as Bellini’s Virgin and Companion Saints in the Frari, and on another such heathen festivities as the same master’s Bacchanal. But, as he loved music and pleasant company and such pleasantnesses of life, so in his painting he shows us grace and harmony and good breeding. And as these things are hard to find in our daily course and harder still to fix long enough to paint their semblance, he fashioned for himself a world, an Arcadia, where men and women, surrounded by beautiful Nature, lived together, enjoying a life where there was both work and play. In all temperate reason they employ their energies now on problems of deep thought, and now in the satisfaction of health and natural bodily enjoyment, and it is just because of the reasonableness of this balance of mind and body that his pictures seem poetic, dreamlike and difficult to explain. As Keats, more than any scientist or idle dreamer, tells how the nightingale entrances the soul, so Giorgione depicts the Virgin and her Child guarded by attendant Saints, or adored by kings and slaves, with greater persuasiveness than any theologian. But he does this neither as one diverted only by the pageantry, nor as an historian. Endowed with a poet’s instinct, he saw the deeper meaning of the scene and depicted those parts that truly illustrate it.

Other artists there have been endowed with this same instinct, but their works do not obtain from us of to-day as full response as from our forefathers who lived when they were painted, and this because they do not give visual form to matters of lasting import, but to those fleeting affairs that constitute fashion. This is not so of Giorgione. The glory of his work will never fade, for his appeal is to the spirit of youth—that spirit which is compounded of a pure and natural love in all things beautiful, be they physical or spiritual, natural or divine, and with energy sufficient to urge it forward to the acquisition of, and the becoming part of, each and all of these various perfections. Such was Giorgione: neither utterly pagan, nor completely christian, but absolutely human in the finest sense, in that his perceptions were clear enough to see the special value of all things beautiful and his technical powers adequate to give due expression to that which he perceived.

INDEX

Alexander, portraits of, 82

allegory of Time and Truth, 13

archæological study of art, 3, 4

art as an index of life, 4, 57, 97, 133, 147 function of, 128

Athena, head of, from Cyrene, 135 f. date of, 142 local work, 149

beauty, Greek love of, 76

Bellini and Giorgione, 173, 181

Bellini, Bacchanal, 190

Berenson, 154, 157, 171, 172

Bernini, an estimate of, 3 f. architectural work, 40 f. classes of his work, 14 clay models, 21, 44 f. contemporary honour for, 6 designs for piazza of St. Peter’s, 50 f. early life of, 15 estimate and characterization of, 42 expression of religion, 22 influence of, 23 multiplicity of sketches, 19 originality of, 20 portraits of, 10 f. sculptor’s models, 21 f., 44 f. list of, 46 technique of, 18 f. versatility, 40

Bernini, works of, Æneas and Anchises, 16 angels, used in architecture, 23 f. Apollo and Daphne, 7, 17 Baldacchino in St. Peter’s, 33 Beata Albertona, 32 Cattedra in St. Peter’s, 33 Daniel in the lions’ den, 29 David, 16 fountains, 14, 34 Habakkuk, 26 Maria di Magdala, 32, 49 portraits, 14, 35 Bishop Santoni, 37 Costanza Buonavelli, 37 Francis I, 39 Louis XIV, 39 Mons. Francesco Barberini, 39 Mons. Montoya, 37 Paul V, 38 Proserpina, 17 saints, 25 Santa Bibiana, 26 St. Jerome, 27, 47 Saint Theresa, 30, 48 Truth, 13

Borghese pope, patronage of, 15

Borghese warrior, 17

Botticelli, 112, 156 Virgin and child in Boston, 157

Brandegee Collection, 21, 41, 45, 51, 85

Browning, 69

Brunn, H., 138

Bupalos and Athenis, 77

Carracci, 3

Cariani and Giorgione, 160, 166

Catena and Giorgione, 177 draperies of, 183 St. Jerome (National Gallery), 178 Knight adoring Infant Christ, 178, 182

Corbulo, portrait of, 57, 88

Cyrene, sculpture of, 136 f.

Dante, Greek spirit in, 113

Demetrius of Alopeke, 84

Egyptian portraiture, 60 sculpture, 61, 140

emotion controlled in Greece, 103

evolution of art, 4

Farnese Hercules, 123

Florentine portraits, 90

Furtwaengler, A., 138

Futurists, 140

Ghirlandaio, 112

Giorgione, 155 f. draperies of, 183 life, 159 list of works, 203, 210 Anonimo Morelli, 163 Barri, 164 Berenson, 171 Crowe and Cavalcaselle, 168 Morelli, 169 Ridolfi, 161 Vasari, 159 paintings attributed to, 155 f. romantic quality of, 181 spirit of his work, 211 the true Giorgione, 172 f. treatment of landscape, 191

Giorgione, works of, Birth of Paris (copy, Buda-Pesth), 196 Christ carrying the Cross (San Rocco, Vienna), 184 David and Solomon (National Gallery), 208 Epiphany (National Gallery), 175 Gypsy Madonna (Vienna), 204 Head of Christ (Gardner Collection, Boston), 185 Holy Family (Benson), 183 f. Judgment of Solomon (Kingston Lacy), 172 f., 182 Knight of Malta (Uffizi), 58, 185 Madonna Enthroned (Castelfranco), 181 Pietà (Venice), 206 Portrait (Temple Newsam), 202 Portrait (Vienna), 209 San Liberale (National Gallery), 186 Shepherd’s Offering (Lord Allandale), 180 f. The Tempest (Venice), 181 Three Philosophers (Vienna), 181 Venus (Dresden), 174, 181

Giorgione, works attributed to, Allegory (Dresden), 195 Cassone pictures (Padua), 195 Concert (Pitti), 188 Daphne and Apollo (Venice), 194 Fête Champêtre (Louvre), 189 Head of Boy (Hampton Court), 187 Judith (St. Petersburg), 195 Madonna (Madrid), 193 Madonna and Saints (Louvre), 187 Nymph and Satyr (Pitti), 187 Orpheus and Eurydice (Bergamo), 200 Portrait (Berlin), 198 Portrait (Borghese), 196 Portrait (Buda-Pesth), 197 Portrait (from Crespi Collection), 202 Portrait (from Doetsch Collection), 201

Guido, 3

hair as a means of dating sculpture, 144

Hipponax, caricature of, 77

humanity of the Greek gods, 150

Kresilas, portrait of Pericles, 58, 75, 78 f.

Laocoon, 123

Laws of sculpture, 7

Leonardo, 140, 158

logical reasoning about pictures, 176

Longinus, 46

Lowell on Lincoln, 69

lucidity of Greek sculpture, 140

Lysippus, portraits of Alexander, 82

“Massacre of the Innocents,” 73

materials for sculpture, 145