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
Michael Angelo and Bernini, 16
Michael Angelo, 97 f.
affectation of the period, 119, 120
complexity of his work, 101, 103
feeling for the nude figure, 101
muscles emphasized, 120, 123
period of, 98, 103, 111
pupils of, 122
sonnets and letters, 115
Michael Angelo, works of,
Bacchus, 116 f.
Battle of the Centaurs, 133
David, 133
Eros, 116, 118, 120
Madonna of Bruges, 116, 131
Moses, 100, 102
Night and Dawn, 122
Pietà in St. Peter’s, 100
Sistine Chapel, 121, 125 f., 132
Victor, 116
Morelli on Giorgione, 155 f.
Mourning Athena, 148
Myron’s Discobolus, 17
mystical fervour in art, 3
Niobid group, 73
nude figure felt under drapery, 101 f.
Oberammergau, 31
origins of art, 3
Pausanias, 138
Pericles, portrait of, 58, 75, 78 f.
Pheidias and Michael Angelo, 93 f.
Pheidias, age of, 105, 109
and Pericles, 110
influence of, 94 f.
Pheidias, work of,
Athena Parthenos, 131
Lemnian Athena, 101, 131
Parthenon, 3, 132
frieze, 118
pediments, 101, 121
Zeus, 108
photography and art criticism, 155
physical beauty prized by Greeks, 151
portraits of women and children, 89
portraits made for friends, 65
portraiture, art of, 57 f.
commemorative, 60, 64
Egyptian, 60
Florentine, 90
Greek and Roman, 85
in language, 66
in large compositions, 62
in painting and sculpture, 59, 71, 74
motives for, 59
religious, 59
summary, 91
Raphael, Angelo Doni, 58
realism, in sculpture, 75
realism, Greek and Roman, 75
religion and art, 104, 106
Roselli, 156
Roman art, 4
Ruskin, 156
Scipio, so-called bust of, 57
Sheik-el-Beled, 57
Shelley, 66, 68
Silanion, 83
technical peculiarities in paintings, 157 f.
temple, significance of the Greek, 106
Tintoretto, Greek spirit of, 113
Titian, Duke of Norfolk, 58
Triton, 47
“Truth unveiled by Time,” 13
Turner’s Rizpah, 67
violence in art, 8
wealth and art, 64, 91
youth in Greek art, 111
-----
Footnote 1:
Filippo Baldinucci Fiorentino. _Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo
Bernini._ Firenze. 1682.
Domenico Bernino. _Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino._ Roma.
1713.
Stanislao Fraschetti. _Il Bernini._ Milan. 1900.
Footnote 2:
Fraschetti, _op. cit._, p. 47.
Footnote 3:
Fraschetti, _op. cit._, pp. 425, 426.
Footnote 4:
Fraschetti, _op. cit._, p. 428.
Footnote 5:
This portrait (Fraschetti, _op. cit._, p. 434) is probably a copy of
one owned by Baron Geymüller in London.
Footnote 6:
Fraschetti, _op. cit._, p. 429.
Footnote 7:
In the Museum at Weimar is a portrait on which is written that it was
done by Bernini himself, and as an _autoritratto_ it has been
published by Fraschetti (p. 433). It is a wretched performance, done
not by Bernini, but by someone who had neither an observant eye nor a
well-trained hand.