THE GIORGIONESQUE
Giorgione had given the impulse, and all the painters round him felt his
power. The Venetian painters that is, for it is remarkable, at a time
when the men of one city observed and studied and took hints from those
of every other, how faint are the signs that this particular manner
attracted any great attention in other art centres. Leonardo da Vinci
was a master of chiaroscuro, but he used it only to express his forms,
and never sacrifices to it the delicacy and fineness of his design. It
is the one quality Raphael never assimilates, except for a brief instant
at the period when Sebastian del Piombo had arrived in Rome from
Venice. It takes hold most strongly upon Andrea del Sarto, who seems,
significantly enough, to have had no very pronounced intellectual
capacity, but in Venice itself it now became the only way. The old
Bellini finds in it his last and fullest ideal; Catena, Basaiti, Cariani
do their best to acquire it, and so successfully was it acquired, so
congenial was it to Venetian art, that even second- and third-rate
Venetian painters have usually something attractive which triumphs over
superficial and doubtful drawing and grouping. It is easy to see how
much to their taste was this fused and golden manner, this disregard of
defined form, and this new play of chiaroscuro. The Venetian room in the
National Gallery is full of such examples: the Nymphs and _Amoretti_ of
No. 1695, charming figures against melting vines and olives; "Venus and
Adonis," in which a bewitching Cupid chases a butterfly; Lovers in a
landscape, roaming in the summer twilight; scenes in which neither
person nor scenery is a pretext for the other, but each has its full
share in arousing the desired emotion. Such pictures are ascribed to, or
taken from Giorgione by succeeding critics, but have all laid hold of
his charm, and have some share in his inspiration.
One of the ablest of his followers, a man whose work is still confounded
with the master's, is Cariani, the Bergamasque, who at different times
in his life also successfully imitated Palma and Lotto. In his
Giorgionesque manner Cariani often creates charming figures and strong
portraits, though he pushes his colour to a coarse, excessive tone. His
family group in the Roncalli Collection at Bergamo is very close to
Giorgione. Seven persons, three women and four men, are grouped together
upon a terrace, and behind them stretches a calm landscape, half
concealed by a brocaded hanging. The effect of the whole is restful,
though it lacks Giorgione's concentration of sensation. Then, again,
Cariani flies off to the gayer, more animated style of Lotto. Later on,
when he tries to reproduce Giorgione's pastoral reveries, his shepherds
and nymphs become mere peasants, herdsmen, and country wenches, who have
nothing of the idyllic distinction which Giorgione never failed to
infuse. "The Adulteress before Christ" at Glasgow still bears the
greater name, but its short, vulgar figures and faulty composition
disclaim his authorship, while Cariani is fully capable of such
failings, and the exaggerated, red-brown tone is quite characteristic
of him.
These painters are more than merely imitative; they are also typical.
Giorgione's new manner had appealed to some quality inherent and
hereditary in their nature, and the essential traits they single out and
dwell upon are the traits which appeal equally to the instincts of both.
It is this which makes their efforts more sympathetic than those of
other second-rate painters. Colour, or rather the peculiar way in which
Giorgione used colour, made a natural appeal to them, and it is a medium
which does make an immediate appeal and covers a multitude of
shortcomings.
But Giorgione was not to leave his message to the mercy of mere
disciples and imitators, however apt. Growing up around him were men to
whom that message was an inspiration and a trumpet-call, men who were to
develop and deepen it, endowing it with their own strength, recognising
that the way which the young pioneer of Castelfranco had pointed out
was the one into which they could unhesitatingly pour their whole
inclination. The instinct for colour was in their very blood. They
turned to it with the heart-whole delight with which a bird seeks the
air or a fish the water, and foremost among them, to create and to
consolidate, was the mighty Titian.
PRINCIPAL WORKS
_Cariani._
Bergamo. Carrara: Madonna and Saints.
Lochis: Woman and Shepherd; Portraits; Saints.
Morelli: Madonna (L.).
Roncalli Collection: Family Group.
Hampton Court. Adoration of Shepherds (L.); Venus (L.).
London. Death of S. Peter Martyr (L.); Madonna and Saints (L.).
Milan. Brera: Madonna and Saints (L.); Madonna (L.).
Ambrosiana: Way to Golgotha.
Paris. Madonna, Saints, and Donor (E.); Holy Family and Saints.
Rome. Villa Borghese: Sleeping Venus; Madonna and S. Peter.
Venice. Holy Family; Portraits.
Vienna. Christ bearing Cross; The "Bravo."
_School of Giorgione._
London. Unknown subject; Adoration of Shepherds; Venus and Adonis;
Landscape, with Nymphs and Cupids; The Garden of Love.
Mr. Benson. Lovers and Pilgrim.