Giorgione a New Study of His Art As A

G I O R G I O N E a n e w S t ud y o f h is a r t a s a

L A N D S C A P E P A I N T E R THE WOODCUTTERS OF THE NETHE RLANDS IN THE FIFTEBNI’ ‘H CENT 1 8 8 URY, 4 THE ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT OF REYNOLDS AN D GAINS O O 1 8 86 B R UGH,

E E T T 1 8 8 ARLY FL MISH AR IS S, 7 THE L TE A RE N OF E T E 1 8 8 I R RY MAI S ALBR CH DUR R, 9

THE N OF T 1 8 1 DAW AR , 9 ’ C E G E To THE PENN NE AND LEPONTINE S LIMB RS UID S I ALP ,

1 8 0 ETC . 9 ,

C N AN D EX ORAT ON IN THE K KO -H LIMBI G PL I ARA RAM IMALAYAS, 1 8 94

THE F O END To END 1 8 ALPS R M , 95

THE T C O N OF S T E EN 1 8 FIRS R SSI G PI SB RG , 97

W T SKI AND S E E OVE T G E 1 8 8 I H L DG R ARC IC LACI RS, 9

THE BO V N N E 1 0 1 LI IA A D S, 9

THE O N OF T 1 02 D MAI AR , 9

E N T T 1 02 ARLY TUSCA AR IS S, 9

ON AND E DEL E O 1 02 AC CAGUA TI RRA FU G , 9

G E T M TE 1 0 R A AS RS, 9 4

THE 1 0 ALPS, 9 4

E T AND EN VO E To S T E EN 1 0 ARLY DU CH GLISH YAG S PI SB RG , 9 4 ’ ’ NO M N L N Hzﬂ ofS itsber en 1 06 A S A D ( wy p g ), 9

THE S O T OF CO E TIN 1 1 P R LL C G, 9 4

THE C O IN PE E AND WAR 1 1 R WD AC , 9 5

THE E OF ST . EN 1 1 6 ABB Y D IS , 9

MO NT N ME O E 1 20 U AI M RI S, 9

THE VAN E K AND T E O O E 1 2 1 YC S H IR F LL W RS, 9

P E T NE AND MO O O 1 2 AL S I R CC , 9 3

THE T E E OF SOV ET R 1 2 AR TR ASUR S I USSIA, 9 5

GIO R G IO N E

n e w s tud y O f h i s a r t a s

L AN D S C A P E P A I N T E R

Sir M a r t in C o n w ay M P Litt. D. , .

F ormer/J Slade Profauor qfA rt at Cambridge

L O N D O N

E R N E S T B E N N L I M I T E D

Bo t/ e e r i e Ho m e F le e t S t r e e t

L I S T O F I L L U S T R AT I O N S

PARIS EXPOSED F ro ntispieoe

FRAGMEN T OF THE BIRTH OF PARIS . Bndapeyt Gallery

THE B i . L T O F P Co b e n e rs. elon in to Mrs Clear/e; oeyer IR H ARIS py y T B g g .

AN i i i E B G o ann Be llin . i lle ALL GORY . y v Uﬁz Ga ry

THE N A llin to Caf t e o leetio FI DIN G OF PARIS . g n l C l n

P E T A llin to C t e Colle t on ARIS GIV N O N URSE . g n ae l e i

E D TAIL OF FIG . 4

B t DRAWIN G OF A CHILD . y Albre c h Dure x:

DRAWIN G OF A LANDSCAPE . Froin tbe Vendrani in Catalogue

N F ’ DRAWI G O PARIS AND THE THREE GODDESSES . tbe Venaranzin

’ THE F U i i Galler JUDGMEN T O SOLOMON . jjz y

THE O E F E U i Galler RD AL O MOS S . ﬁz y

O E AN D E E eranzo Galle RPH US URYDIC . B g y

’ O O AND N E S eminario aella Salute Venice AP LL DAPH . ,

’ TWO C N E P Paana Galler ASSO ANELS . y

% T AND G atina Galle A OU H A IRL . P ry

LE AND THE S Paolna Gal/e r DA WAN . a

THE E E T . ala o Giooanelli Veniee T MP S P zz ,

i a o ' ort a ton A GIRL AND A SOLDIER . Belong ng to tbe M rquis f N b nip

THE CASTE LFRAN CO MADONNA

THE EE P E Vienna Galler THR HILOSOPH RS . y

i arl o Mal bar PARIS AND THE THRE E GODDESSES . Belong ng to tbe E f ni em y

’ Drexaen Galle SLEEPIN G VENUS . ry

HE E Tbe L enore T FET CHAMPETRE .

Tbe majority of tbe pbotograpby bane been ep eeially takenfor tbe d w er Han e taen l antbor Otb r: ar b eur A linari an M e . . e e M e . . y f g

G IO R G IO N E

A S A L A NDS C A P E P A INT ER

GI R GI N c m m i i i f rm e m a i O O E of Castelfranco is , in the o on op n on of n o d nk nd, a a mir hi nt m o r one of the greatest painters of all time . He w s d e d by s c o e p aries his reputation has never suffered eclipse but rather increased With the % e t m is passing ce nturies . of the man hi self little is know n and less of con f temporary record . His short li e covers a most interesting period When the i f w as fl . ts tide of the Renaissance setting in ood He himself, borne on irst its great wave, expressed its spirit and inspired exponents in the domain of T hus . painting . in the history of Venetian art he is a pivotal personage To i i H s h s . OW understand him to probe the ideals of day his art arose, by What w as ho w o w n in influences it shaped , his gifted nature responded to those flue nce s , What he absorbed and What he refused, What he received and what he gave—the discovery and clear exposition of these facts is a prime duty for the historian of Venetian art . h as It is nevertheless unfortunately true that, notwithstanding all that

been written by the most learned experts on Italian art, these particular problems h as n have never been squarely faced . There been much writi g about u - ff Giorgione . Strenuo s and long continued e orts have been made to draw up a list of his ex istin g works Which might receive general acceptance Gio r io ne s but no such union ofopinion has been attained . The g of Crowe and Cavalcase lle C , of Morelli, of Berenson, of ook, of Venturi, and of Ludwig

Justi overlap one another but do not coincide . The trouble is that many the t n him of pic ures defi itely recorded as by no longer exist, While of the t fe w a ro x i pic ures reasonably ascribable to him, are authenticated by pp mately contemporary record and several are in very bad condition . The problem his of later works , Which does not here concern us , is further complicated by the recorded fact that the pictures he left behind him in an incomplete condition ni f so is were fi shed by his Slightly younger ollower Titian, that it a matter of great difficulty to draw a line between such works and others painted Wholly w as l by Titian at the same date , While the influence of Giorgione powerfu upon him . During the last half-century or thereabout a group o f connoisseurs has arisen, Who , by intensive study of pictures in minute detail, have been able to 9 G IORGI ONE ul group together sets ofpictures as assuredly the work ofpartic ar artists , either ni known or not known by name . These experts have learned to recog ze the i actual handiwork of a man, his individual tricks of touch, as a handwrit ng iff expert d erentiates script . But handwriting experts for all their care and n l learning are far from i fallib e, and experts in painting attributions are no more

M . 18 une from error There not one of them Who on occasion has not made , nf n and co essed to maki g, serious blunders . We regard their judgments With

W e d . respect, but do not surrender to them an uncon itional assent Moreover, it is obvious that in the nature o f things there must be many limitations to their h ’ . W assurance ere an artist s output is large, continuous , and amply preserved, it is possible to follow the changes in his style from year to year and even from

’ ni month to month . Each picture can easily be connected in style and tech que

a ut ' th e With others of b o same date . But Where there are great gaps in the list ’ o f and a large proportion the artist s output has been destroyed, important links

- may be lost . Instances might be cited Where two groups ofpaintings have been o f hi o identiﬁed, each as the work a single artist, W ch have been disc vered later on to be the work not o f two men but o f one at different stages Of his career .

' o f is f clo se e x aminatio n The work the expert based, as a oresaid, upon a of ’ the painter s handiwork in detail . He cannot form a valid opinion based on n anything except the actual pai t as laid on and left by the artist . But in the - case of pictures that have weathered periods of neglect, during a life time of f nl our centuries or more, o y those that were very solidly painted and have - escaped ill usage retain their original surface in tact . It is the misfortune of Giorgione that hardly one ofhis pictures exists to-day in anything like original f so fe w o f condition . The act that the pictures survive Which he is recorded to have painted , numerous though they were, While many more in proportion his of the works of his contemporaries are known, suggests that there was in technique some error of handling Which led to the rapid degeneration o f his tu colours . It is in any case obvious that his surviving pic res have come down to us almost invariably in bad , and sometimes in very bad condition . They have had to be restored and in parts repainted , so that much of their present surface is not to be accepted as the actual handiwork o f Giorgione . Hence the e o ntiﬁcate best t chnical experts cannot be trusted When they p about this artist, because the very ground upon which their opinion must be based is uncertain and incomplete .

' I doubt Whether in fact the learned critics Who have written about Gio r

I O GIORGIONE

gio ne have based their judgment to any considerable extent upon that detailed t f study of handwri ing which is the theoretical foundation o their craft . I think their opinion has had a more purely msth e tic foundation than they are i conscious of, or at any rate will ng to acknowledge . They have familiarized o f themselves with certain pictures , have received from them the impression ’ an artistic personality, and they have constructed their list of the artist s works fi by means of that criterion . They have accepted in the rst instance, as typical f - — works by Giorgione, the following our well authenticated pictures the ” Giovanelli Tempest, the Vienna Three Philosophers , the Castelfranco

Madonna, and the Dresden Venus . The authenticity of these is guaran To f teed by contemporary record . them have been added with air unanimity} F ete ebanz étre the Madrid Madonna, the Judith in the Hermitage, and the p in the Louvre ; also a very few portraits which do not come within the scope Of

my present study . Outside of this small group thus generally accepted a Ca alcase lle Friz z o ni . v chaos of attributions reigns Crowe and , Morelli, , Wic kho ff ff Berenson, Venturi, Herbert Cook, Gronau , , Schmid , Schae er,

Ludwig Justi, and others maintain their respective opinions based upon their U f f individual reactions from pictures beheld . n ortunately they ail even in approximate unanimity and their opinions remain without authority and

Without proof. I do not propose in the present enquiry to display yet another aesthetically created Giorgione, nor shall I ask the reader to place any confidence in my conclusions on the basis of an imagin ed special sensitiveness in me either o e innate racquired . I propose to approach the Giorgion problem from a new W h o l angle by an untrodden route, and the reader accompanies me wi l be asked to use his ordinary intelligence by the way and not any peculiar gift o f artistic insight . Moreover it is not my present purpose to deal with the entire his inve sti at career ofour artist nor to discuss every branch of activity, but by g ing one such branch to discover and manifest its origin and growth and thus to link together a succession ofhis paintings which lucidly exhibit his develop in ment in a definite direction . I shall therefore exam e Giorgione mainly as a landscape painter and I hope to show that a series of landscapes or landscape backgrounds painted by him can be identified and arranged in a chron f ological succession . The group of pictures thus isolated and irmly united will be found to form an authentic basis fo r the study of his art as a Whole .

1 But so m e critics ascribe the Madrid Mado nna to the yo ung Titian an d th e Fete obanzpitre t o Se bastiano de l Pio m b o .

I I ’ THE Gio r io n e s fe w w as recorded facts about g life are . He born about the 1 f as his n year 477 . Castel ranco w birthplace accordi g to Vasari ; Vedelago n Rid lfi is as accordi g to o . A man named Giorgione da Vedelago recorded a ’ f 0 o f 1 6 . Rido lfi citizen Castel ranco in 4 He may have been the painter s father . says that our artist belonged to one of the best families in those parts . A later and less credible tradition makes him the illegitimate offspring of a Barbare lli by a girl ofVedelago . I recently paid a visit to that place and found it, what it n tw o always must have been, a large and thrivi g village with considerable t churches . The larger has recen ly been rebuilt and is one of the best modern as w as churches I have seen . I w told that it erected by the people of the place in eighteen months . It is a brick edifice in the simplest Romanesque style . - A bold round arched arcading separates the nave from the tw o aisles . The arches are supported on fine monolith stone columns and well designed and - n i sculptured capitals . A noble apse terminates the east end . The i terior s beautift proportioned and the effect ofthe Whole is charmin g in the admirable - is Simplicity of its excellent brick work . I like to think that this good taste as i hereditary in the village and that it w shared by the ancestors of Giorg one . Vedelago is only four miles distant from Castelfranco along the Treviso so w as road, that it really matters little whether our artist born in the big village m or the little town , the same flat plain and type of scenery being com on to both . Bassano is the nearest important place to them, being some eight or nine miles away .

Giorgione came to Venice when still quite young, but, as I shall Show, already a formed artist . He may have served his apprenticeship at Bassano before going to the great city of the lagoons and entering the workshop of

Giovanni Bellini, rather as an assistant than as an apprentice . Save for probable

‘ visits to Castelfranco he seems to have spent the whole o f his independent n 1 1 0 worki g life at Venice, and there in the year 5 he died of the plague at the - n early age of thirty three . We may imagi e him settled down about the ’ 1 as year 494, at which time he would have had companions among Bellini s

s . helper , Bissolo , Pierino Santo , Lattanzio da Rimini, and Marco Marziale Let us now enquire whether any early work by Giorgione exists which ’ w as his . painted before entry into Bellini s workshop By strange good fortune, ’ Gio r io ne s w e among the very sparse existing records of g activity, possess accurate information about one of his earliest Works . It also happens to be one in which the inﬂuence of Bellini is not apparent and it may therefore have been painted before or very soon after his arrival at Venice .

1 2 G IORG IONE

1 1 0 d w as In the year 5 , when Giorgione ied of the plague at Venice, he just n attaini g the height of his powers . The admiration which he was already receiving in full measure from his younger contemporaries w as beginning to w as spread among Italian lovers and patrons of art . Thus it that when news of his untimely death reached the ears of Isabella d’ Este at Mantua she desired to obtain a picture by him before his studio contents were dispersed . Accord ingly on October 1 5 th of that year She wrote the followin g letter to Taddeo

Albano, a Venetian merchant, whom she seems to have been wont to employ as her agent for the purchase of pictures at Venice .

We are informed that among the stuff and effects O f the pain ter Zo rz o Una N oete of Castelfranco there exists a picture of a Night ( ), very beautiful and f ask singular if so it might be we desire to possess it and we there ore you , in company with Lorenzo da Pavia and any other who has judgment and under alerz no se e is l i standing ( g ), to whether it a real y fine th ng and if you find it such to go to work with Master Carlo Valerio our most dear compatriot and anyone else that seems good, to obtain this picture for me, settling the price and f o . se e l giving me notice it And if you we l to conclude a bargain , the thing o ff hi being really fine, lest someone else should carry it do what you t nk best etc .

MANTUA 2 Oetober , 5 ,

his sth ﬁ o f Albano in reply, dated Venice, November , con rms the report ’ Gio rgio ne s death but informs his patroness that no such picture as the one ’ ” f o ff r . re erred t by her remains among the a tist s e ects It is true, he continues , Zo rz o in that the said painted one for Taddeo Contarini, which from my de la formation, is not very perfect as you would wish . Another picture, noete w as Zo rz o t i , made by the said for one Victorio Becca o , wh ch I am told ’ fi Co ntarin i s Be c c aro is better designed and better nished than , but is not at present in these parts , and, as I am informed, neither the one nor the other o w n (picture) is for sale at any price, because they had them made for their enjoyment . The last words are importan t as implying that these pictures were comm issioned and the subject therefore probably not chosen by the artist but his by patron . Thus in 1 5 1 0 there was in the house of Taddeo Contarini at Venice a

t nna noete as . pic ure by Giorgione of . It was not regarded a very ﬁne work

1 Th e le tte r T e are ubli e d s are pre s e rve d am o ng th e G o nz aga a rchive s at Mantua. h y p sh ’ in A rebioio Starita dell A r l V . I te o . . , p 47 1 5 G I ORGIONE

’ F f w as Co ntarini s i teen years later the same picture seen , still in Taddeo house, w h o w as 1 by Marcantonio Michiel, in those days a studious amateur of art, and — - w as reputed to be eonrnmatirrimo nelle antiebita a ﬁrst rate authority on an ti uitie in n q s. He visited all the collections ofpictures or ear Venice to which he is had access and wrote still extant notes upon them . This how he describes the picture in question

The canvas o f a landscape with the Birth o f Pari s W lth the two shepherds upright on their feet it w as by the hand of Zo rz o of Castelfranco and w as one ” o f 2 his earliest works .

‘ From these two records we learn that Giorgione painted tw o versions of a picture (one at least on canvas) representing a subject described as Una N oete o f in o ne o f in one account and as the Birth Paris the other, and that n t them was among his earliest pai tings . We fortunately possess a fragmen

of one of these pictures and a good copy of the other .

The copy is a painting which was in the possession of the late Mr . Charles F se t o f in Loeser at lorence . It is one of a copies by Teniers of pictures the his collection formed at Brussels by the Archduke Leopold William. On l 1 66 1 death he left the collection by wi l, dated 9 October, , to the Emperor

Leopold I . This collection was commemorated in a folio publication containing 245 engraved plates issued at Brussels by David Teniers with the following Tbeatrnm ietorinm in no ex bibentnr erie/r mann delineate einr ne enra in title p q A , q ’ aer ineirae pietnrae arebitypae italieae gnar arebianx in pinaeotbeoam m am Brnx ellis

The ﬁrst edition o f this work is dated 1 660 but in fact the plates began to

' ’ ”

Gio r io ne s . be issued two years earlier . One ofthem depicts g Birth of Paris ’ After the Archduke s death the collection w as taken to Vienna and se t up in 3 the Amalienhof but presently removed to the Stallburg . To it were added other works belongin g to the Emperor and the whole formed the basis o f n the existing Vie na picture gallery . In 1 72 8 another publication o f engravin gs o f the pictures in the Stallburg

1 Mi ie l u e d to b e kno w n as th e An o n m o di Mo re lli w h o ubli e d his n o te b o o k ch s y , p sh ’ ” ’ i in G Friz z o n i s e ditio n un de r th e title N otiz ia ai o ere di diaro ne e tc . It s b e t re e rre d to . z p g , s f ,

o lo na 1 8 8 . B , 4 g N ' 2 ’ ’ ’ L a tela elel aere eon el nareimento ao arir eon li aiii artori ritti im ieae n de Mano de p P p p , f - Zorzo de Cartelfram e e fn del/e rne prime opere . 3 Vo l. I n i e inte i t e ie nn a a r u de r A . H. K ai e r au e An in ve to ry s r pr d n h V Jh b ch s h s s, ,

art 2 No . . P , 49 5 I 4

GIORGIONE

w as . . F : Tbeatrnm artie ietoriae begun by A J de renner under the title p , ’ qno tabulae debietae qnae in eaerarea oinaobonenripinaeotbeea servantnr leoiore eaelatnra ex bibentnr. Only four parts of this publication were issued at Vienna between - n 1 60 the years 1 72 8 3 3 They contai ed plates . The complete book as intended w as Was never published . Its place taken by a less ambitious work contain ing 0 o f l- re re only 3 plates etchings , on each of which a number of smal scale p ’ Gio r io n e s se ntatio n s of the pictures were combined . g Birth of Paris Stam art an 2 1 w as d . will be found on Plate . This published by p A de Brenner at Vienna in 1 73 5 under the title Proelromnr rive praeambnlnm rererati mag

nz eentiae Tbeatri ietnrae im eratorir . w as ﬁ p p , etc It reprinted in the Vienna

VII ii. K . V A. H. jahrbuch der aiserhauses , Band , Theil II, p ’ Thus w e kn ow that the version o f Gio rgio ne s Birth of Paris which ’ w as 1 w as in the Archduke s collection in existence in the year 73 5 in Vienna . May it not be possible that some wrecked remains of it still exist in the m aga zines o f the great Vienna Gallery %

1 5 THERE also exists in the Budapest Gallery a large-scale fragment amounting - f f to about the right hand hal o the same composition . It is painted on canvas . Not unnaturally the late Moritz Th ausing (on whom be peace) identiﬁed this fragment as a portion of the picture which belonged to the Archduke . Such, ’ fo r however, is not the case, this fragment did not come from the Archduke s collection, but was one of the pictures presented to the Budapest Gallery in - P rke r w h o w as mid nineteenth century by John Ladislaus y , Patriarch ofVenice Erlan his n and afterward Archbishop of Eger ( ) . He acquired collection mai ly in Venice, and there can be little doubt but that the fragment containing the Two Shepherds was purchased by him there and is a part o f the version on canvas which belonged to Taddeo Contarini . - The ﬁrst to call attention to the Budapest picture was that great art critic,

f . Morelli, who identi ied it as part of the picture seen by Marcantonio Michiel Th ausin t tu Professor g of Vienna, whose lec ures I attended as a s dent, gave ’ hi currency to Morelli s discovery in a contribution to the local press , w ch was Kn b Wiener nrt rie e 1 8 8 . reprinted in his f (Leipzig , 4, page His pupil Dr % Wic kh o ff on reading this article identiﬁed the composition as part of that ” Tbeatrnm ietornm engraved in the p , as aforesaid, and thus it was that the Budapest fragment w as believed to have formed part o f Archduke Leopold ll ’ Wi iam s collection . Now Thausing when he ﬁrst wrote had no idea of the nature of the whole as Una Noete composition and had never heard of the designation for it , which f w as 8 Th ausin k o . not published till 1 89 . g new ofit only as the Birth Paris It is therefore notable that in his description of the Budapest fragment he sug — — gests that it is a N aebtbild a night picture thus anticipatin g the very name by ’ w as l which it later discovered that Isabel a d Este had called it . The reader ’ may also remember that Co rre ggio s famous picture ofthe Nativity is popularly ’ La Notte del Corre io h Gio r io ne s called gg , thoug it is little, ifat all, darker than g ” Birth of Paris . Una N oete l If it be claimed that the title was normal y applied to Nativities , ’ ’ e i Gio r io n e s u it is quite possible that Isab lla d Este, hear ng vaguely that g pict re

w as . was of a Birth, assumed that a Nativity meant In any case there can be no serious doubt but that the picture that belonged to Contarini depicted

f Una N oete . the Birth not of Christ but of Paris , and is the one re erred to as

’ Before proceeding further let us brieﬂy c o nSide r the subject o fthesepictures ; the reproductions herewith render description unnecessary (Figs . 1 and The o f tale Troy w as a popular romance throughout the Middle Ages . It was told in

1 6

GIORGIONE

o f prose and verse by many authors in all the tongues Western Europe . These

versions were based upon two late Roman tales , fabled to have been written ’ ’ by eye-witnesses o f the Trojan w ar the Hirtoria ae ex eiaio Tro/ae and the six emerir belli Troiani Phr ius books of the p , attributed respectively to Dares yg

and Dictys Cretensis . Among the more important poems and romances that ’ grew out o f these were the twelfth-century Roman ae Troie of Benoit de Sainte

More, a Norman courtier ofHenry II of England, and an almost contemporary in To poem Latin verse by Simon Capra Aurea . the thirteenth century belong Hirtoria dertrnetionir Tro ae w as the j by Guido delle Colonne, which often nﬁ u translated, and the u nished poem of abo t lines by Conrad von u 1 2 8 0 W rzburg dating from . Simon and Conrad alone among all these writers f and their derivatives relate a tale of the Birth o Paris . It also ﬁnds place in - a fourteenth century Venetian version preserved in the Laurentian Library,

where it is inserted into the narrative o f Guido . Conrad tells how the Shepherds were about to kill the infant Paris with a s re ﬂe x io n o f word , as ordered by Priam, but when the child beheld the his face in the bright steel he laughed so sweetly that they had not the heart to ll ki him and so they gave him secretly to a nurse . The Trojan tale w as popular in north Italy owing to the belief that many — — ofthe cities in that part Padua and Verona fo r example owed their fo un da ’ Gi r i ne s l . o o tion to Trojan exiles g Paris pictures , however, do not i lus e is trate the Story as told in any ofthese media val versions . It just possible that a version of the tale printed at Florence in 1 49 1 may have come into Gio r io ne ls n f g hands , but it relates that the i ant was exposed in a valley ” w i o f w e ith a great m ll . Now there is no mill in either the pictures have been c is onsidering , though in the earlier of them there a Stream, and the young

woman seated by its source may be the nymph ofthe fountain . i li t F w as w as m e d x va s . Giorgione, however, no rom the ﬁrst he devoted u to the new ideas and the New Learning . It is m ch more probable that he came in contact with the Paris tale through a contemporary humanist than from a ae u u medi val poem or romance . In that case his so rce m st have been a passage ’ Genealo ia Doaram t o f in Boccaccio s g , an edi ion which was printed in Venice Bo n e to u by Locatelli in March, The passage in q estion occurs in Book VI XXII n ff , Chapter , and is to the followi g e ect

1 ' ' e i ri obi /i oiri D Oetaoiani Seoti tinir Moaoetienrir Th m print is Venetiir anetn et ex p en r N s . ’ MCCCCLXXXXIV reptimo Kalenaar Martiar ﬁnir imp oritnr fait bnie operi p er Bonetnm L oea

I 7 GIORG IONE

' Tullius w h e re n w as , he is writing of divi ation, relates that when Hecuba f sh e pregnant with that pregnancy wherefrom a terwards Paris was born, being asleep had a Vision o f an outbreak o f ﬁre whereby Troy was utterly burnt and o f ﬁl destroyed . In consequence which dream andvision Priam, ledwith anxiety, consulted Apollo , who answered that all Troy would be destroyed by the agency o f the child about to be born wherefore Priam ordered the child of Hecuba she f to be exposed . Hecuba, however, when beheld her beauti ul boy, took pity on him and gave him to someone that he should give him to the King’ s Shep w as herds to be nourished, and thus he brought up by the shepherds under ” Mount Ida .

’ Giorgione treats Boccaccio s Story with great freedom . I suppose the rock on the left to be Mount Ida and the woman to be either Hecuba or a mountain

‘ ﬂutin goddess . The old man g looks as though he had been copied from a - f ’ . in Roman bas relie The Shepherds clothes are ~ disorder ; their tapes are f A o table not tied . It is suggested that they have been called rom sleep . n f f eature is the landscape, ramed on either Side by dark masses of foliage and hill and extending to a far distance . It is the landscape of the ll o f dr foothi s the Veneto where they oop into the plain . In this landscape f ’ are little groups of grace ul people variously employed . I invite the reader s o f its special attention to the tower with a buttress at each four angles , jutting up behind a farm buildin g with long sloping roof sheltering a wooden veranda . This tower and farm must have actually existed and been well known to Gio ri i ne g o . They appear again in ano ther picture by our master which belongs to Lord Northampton and whereof I shall have more to say hereafter . There so they are seen from a point considerably more to the left, that the tower stands independently and the farm building is to the right with other buildings and a church adjacent to it on the top of a small elevation . The same farm l P ete ebam itre u no w bui ding appears yet a third time in the p in the Lo vre, but it is seen from the opposite or chimney side and the tower is ofnecessity hidden behind a great dome of trees . A trouble I have had with this book is that after I supposed myself to have ﬁn ished my work upon it some new feature has imposed itselfupon my notice f u - involving a special journey to Italy to identi y it . This fo r square tower buttressed at the corners did not seem of any importance till I discovered it ’ o rth am to n s repeated in Lord N p picture . That led to a careful examination of all the other landscapes and the observation that beside the tower the

1 8

GIORGIONE hills as beheld from near Bassano one from a point about three miles west of

‘ f f b ank o f r the city, the other rom the road up the le t the Brenta Valley, th ee miles or so above where it opens on to the plain . Bassano therefore must have been o f f very well known to Giorgione, who carried some the eatures ofthat locality h in his memory till the end ofhis life . It is thus quite possible that he may ave u begun his studies in some Bassano st dio . e TherewerepaintersatthattimeworkinginBassano . ThegreatBartolomm o i 1 8 1 8 8 F Montagna was pa nting there in the years 4 7 and 4 . rancesco da Ponte ’ il w as Gio r io ne s vecchio born there about ten years before g birth , andhe seems - fo r to have acquired his art in his birth place . It had long been a fashion to - o f S uar fresco the house fronts at Bassano . Dario , one the earliest disciples of q -f in o f cione, painted such house ronts the middle years the ﬁfteenth century . w as Montagnana similarly active there about the same time, and the artistic traditions of the place went back to Martinello and other fourteenth-century ’ painters . It may therefore be concluded that there were one or more painters workshops busy at Bassano when Giorgione was a lad, and it involves no great stretch of the imagination to suggest that in one o f them our artist may have f laid the oundation of his craft .

2 0 F t u ROM this digression let us return to the pic ure . The f ndamental ele ments in its composition reappear with greater or less emphasis in several of ’ the artist s later works . Let me cite a prominent example . Marcantonio ’ saw Co ntarin i s u Michiel in Taddeo ho se two more pictures by Giorgione, whereof one showing Aeneas and Anchises in Hades has disappeared . The i 2 0 other (F g. ) is thus described i The canvas painted in oil of the three ph losophers in a landscape, two so standing and one seated , who observes the angles , with the rock wonder It w as Z f fully ﬁnished . begun by orzi da Castel ranco and ﬁnished by Sebas tiano Veneziano .

u o f f This pict re, which was in the collection Charles I , was in act bought by the Archduke Leopold William and is now one of the greatest treasures of o f the Vienna Gallery . When it is remembered that both it and the Birth Paris appear to have been commissions from the same patron it is possible far that they were intended to hang as pendants to one another . In both the extending central vista is framed to right and left by brown masses o frock and f - oliage . In both the dark blue green robe of one figure is juxtaposed to a rich red garment of another . In both two figures Stand emphatically on the right, - relieved against the brown of tree trunks and foliage . Both landscapes are i o f ff is illum ned by the same rose dawn . The great di erence between them the i w as f increase of Sk ll displayed by the painter . What he eeling toward in the i early work he has atta ned in the later, but the artistic personality behind both u pict res isobviously the same . ’ This is not the only occasion o f Gio rgio ne s recurrence to this work o fhis Rido lfi o f youth . records that he painted a picture a nude lady and with her — a shepherd playing the znfnlo and sh e admiring and smiling evidently a ” f f o f reminiscence o the two figures on the le t in the Birth Paris . The reader ’ w h o will cast his eye over a se t o f photographs of Gio rgio ne s paintings will find over and over again small details reappearing in his latest works which can be found in a cruder form in this his earliest known picture . We shall have occasion to point out examples as our investigation proceeds . Let me now direct attention in some detail to the Budapest fragment which possesses much more importance for the Giorgione student than h as ever 1 as been attributed to it . It is described in the Catalogue (No . 4 5 ) follows

1 ’ L a tela a o lio aelli tre loro neo arse dni ritti e nno rentaelo ebe eontem la li ra i eon ne% g fi fi p , p gg , o l ” ram into tori mirabilimente n ineomineiata aa Zor i da Cartel raneo e nita da Sebaftiano oene iano . f ,f z f fi z

2 1 GIORGIONE 6 n 1 x . The Shepherds of Mount Ida and the young Paris . Ca vas 9 3 cm ke r l f P r . o . Presented by J . L . y A tempera copy (detai ) a lost picture Thausin By whom it was called a copy I have not been able to discover . g rightly regarded it as original ; so did Morelli . There is no reason Whatever fo r holding it to be a copy . It possesses every element of originality and no ff internal evidence to a contrary e ect . I had the good fortune to be able to examine the picture at leisure in n Ro z saff compa y with Dr . Didier y, the conservator ofthe Gallery, and with the expert restorer who is permanently attached to the Gallery in an official capacity o f and is very skilful and experienced in technical matters . We had it out the frame and examined it on an easel in an excellent light and with every aid that f ~ magni ying glasses could afford .

Its clo se s rain e d The picture has been relined . original canvas is a g but not thin material that is to say it is a canvas of good quality, not a thin linen such as % uentin Matsys and other Flemish painters o fabout this same date occasion It se e - ally used . was easy to at the left hand edge that the canvas had been cut o ff l a larger picture . It has a so been shortened at the top by perhaps some nine - o f inches or so . The right hand edge and the bottom are the original limits the i paint ng in those directions . What surprised me and also , I think, my com find panions , was to that instead of the picture being considerably laden with o f repaints , it is in remarkably original condition for a work that age . We had ’ with us Ludwig Justi s detailed account of what he thought he saw . Indeed m when I had only exa ined the picture where it hung in the gallery, I was ready u to accept his diagnosis , but nder the better circumstances of the studio the o f repaints proved to be for the most part imaginary . The authorities the gallery were quite prepared to strip o ff the repaints with solvents and the attempt was made in the neighbourhood ofthe pointing hand where the aspect o f w as considerable repainting suggested, but the event proved that all the paint was ancient ; there was nothing to come away . The whole rather f awkward straight outline of the poin ting arm is original . There are in act no repaints anywhere of any importance, but only small fillings of injured flecks , f mainly on the flesh parts . The same is true of the eet, which Justi suggests may even have been otherwise posed . They are just as the young artist painted k a them, and the wea nesses in drawing and det ils which it seemed possible to ascribe to an awkward restorer or indifferent copyist are in every case due to the inexperience of a young painter striving to accomplish work beyond his as yet partially developed technical powers .

2 2 GIORGIONE

Let a word be said about the colouring of the picture . The coat of the ’ o f pointing shepherd is a rich bright red, the other shepherd s coat is of a very

dark greenish blue . The grass in the foreground is dark green ; the Shrubs

and most ofthe foliage have faded into brown , but among the trees some green sk lingers . The y low down in the distance, though evidently faded, still f n retains a aint pi k ﬂush, indicative of dawn . The White garments are Shaded o with a greyish green . The White is not ofthe vivid brightness s characteristic ’ i i n - al in most of G o rg o e s early works . The tree trunks and branches are most

black ; the ﬂesh colour is bright and warm . The beard of the hairy shepherd

is ruddy in tone . His bushy hair is darker . The once strongly marked hair fin e parting has , I think, been somewhat obfuscated by small retouches . The ’ embroidery round the necks of the men s coats is an evident in stance o f the u general good conservation of the surface . The feet are p dgy and not well f o f f drawn , but they are eet the same type that occur, per ectly drawn , in the ” Vienna Philosophers . The young artist was doing his best . The design ofthe picture as a whole was full ofpromise but the workin g out of it in detail left much to be attained . The extraordinary long straight line formed by the edge o f the arm and ’ prolonged in the overlong finger is a strong proof ofthe picture s genuineness . Throughout his life Giorgione loved to introduce such oblique straight lin es Fo r nl into his compositions . this purpose he commo y placed long rods — in the hands ofsome o f his figure s rods which are almost equivalent to signa ‘ F ete ebam etre tures . Sometimes , as in the p in the Louvre, he almost forced his

ﬁgures to generate such a line . That he should have invented this trick in the earliest ofhis works that has come down to us and that he should have used it again in o ne of his latest is a singular instance of that continuity which links f together the productions of his short but wonder ul career .

2 5 So much then for the Budapest fragment ; let us n o w compare it with the records w e possess of the version of the same composition which w as in the Archduke Leopold William’ s collection and especially with the Loeser copy of ’ it by Teniers . The Archduke s picture is thus described in the existing MS . l 1 6 1 2 Catalogue ofhis ga lery, made in 5 9, under the number 3 A landscape of oil colour on linen wherein two shepherds stand on one side and a child in a~clo th - n lies on the ground, and on the other side a half naked woman and behi d - o x . 1 sits an old man with a pipe . In a gilt frame with eyes 7 spans % fingers ” 1~ n 1 high, 9 spans 7 2 fi gers broad . An original by Giorgione . - 20 8 As ten fingers made one span, and as one span equalled centimetres , 8 2 f 1 . . the size o the canvas was 4 7 cm high by cm wide . Now the Buda 1 if 1 fo r o ff pest fragment is only 9 cm . high , and we add 9 cm . the piece cut as m t at the top , which is as large a piece can possibly be issing , the pic ure 0 from which the Budapest fragment was cut cannot have been more than I 1 cm . f f ’ high . It cannot there ore have ormed part ofthe Archduke s picture , which 1 2 - was 487 cm . high . The latter must have been painted on a small life Size l scale, whi e that from which the Budapest fragment was cut was considerably m s aller . As long as the only known representations of the Archduke’ s picture were Tbeatrnm Pietornm o f 1 660 the engravings , one (in reverse) in the , the other a 2 still more Sketchy print on Plate 2 1 ofthe Proclromnr of 1 75 5 it was just possible for a casual O bserver to imagine that the Budapest fragment might be a part of ’ the Archduke s picture . A more careful examination rendered obvious the ff di erences between the two designs . The next step was to explain these ff f o . di erences as due to the carelessness a copyist The moment, however, u o f that Teniers copy t rned up in the collection the late Mr . Charles Loeser at F re ro duc lorence this explanation became no longer satisfactory . With the p l tions before him the reader can make a comparison for himself. I wi l only l note one or two very obvious features for his guidance . He wi l at once O ff bserve that the Shepherds are painted from di erent models , theirheads having ’ no resemblance in the two pictures . Again in the Archduke s picture they

1 ’ Ein L anatreba t non Obl arb an L einw att w arin a n H ert n einer Seitben rteben fi f f % y n be of , ' ’ em Kindle in einer Windl anf aer E rden lzgt and aaflaer antlern Seitben ein Weibrpildt balb blorg ’ dar in r ei t a i i t b ae n al er M nn mit e ner Pfeyfien J tz en tbne . In einer oer nlden Ramen mit Ox en an en boob r an 1 n er braitb r an n er braitb g g , 7 p 1fig , 9 p 7% fig ” r i ior i O ig nal non J g one . 2 Re printe d fro m th e o rigin al plate s in B an d VII o f th e Jahrbuch de Kunsthisto rische n K ai x Sam lun n A . H a i m de s . e r u e w t te t Dr. He in ri Zi e rm ann e b mm . g s h s s , h y ch 24

G IORG IONE stand at the edge of a dashing brook which is specially prominent in the Pro n elromnr pri t . There is no brook in the Budapest fragment but only a narrow n il brown path dotted with little stones . Agai the ch d on the ground is moved further to the left and the Shepherd ’s hand is differently drawn with the fingers ’ o f Gio r io ne s arranged in another way, a way likewise characteristic g early ’ hi n f period . The big stone be nd the poi ting finger is absent rom the Archduke s n picture . The two little figures run ing down hill have vanished and the background is animated by quite different little folk . The trees are altogether ff di erent and the curious white lump beneath the pointing finger disappears . ’ These are not a copyist s invention . Moreover who was going to copy the immature work of however gifted a lad % I think it will be admitted that all the changes are fo r the better in the case ’ o f the Archduke s picture . We can come to no other conclusion than that Giorgione painted the same subject twice over on different scales and with many alterations in detail and that the Budapest fragment belongs to the ' ’ w e first, the Archduke s picture to the second recension . But the records have ’ Gio r io ne s cited, one of them written at Venice in the very year of g death , o f state that he did paint two versions this very subject, that the earlier and less good version belonged to Taddeo Contarini and that the better version f m o f belonged to Beccat o . The Budapest canvas is there ore a frag ent ’ ’ Co n tarini Be c car s the Teniers picture is a copy of o s. At what date was the first o f these pictures painted% Marcantonio Michiel ’ f i r i n far says that it was one o G o g o e s earliest works . As as I can discover i there s no trace in it of the influence o f Giovanni Bellini . It must thus have been painted either before Giorgione entered Bellini’ s studio or very shortly n afterward . We shall presently see how quickly the you g artist responded to f f o . If the teaching his old master , there ore, we attribute the Contarini picture 1 o f w e to about 494, when Giorgione was approximately seventeen years age, far th e o f shall not go very wrong . As we have seen above, probable source ’ ’ Gio rgio ne s subject was the edition o f Boccaccio s Genealogia Doeram published u in this same year . We are thus led to the concl sion that Giorgione did not ’ enter Bellini s studio before 1 494 and that he came there as a painter w h o had already laid the foun dations o fhis craft and not as a raw apprentice . ’ tu so Once Giorgione had entered Bellini s s dio , sensitive a youth could not remain long in contact with so great a master without falling under his spell . Apart from decorating some walls in the Doge ’ s Palace with pictures illustrative o f o f the glory of Venice , and the painting an increasing number of portraits ,

2 5 GIORGIONE the main work of Bellini and his assistants was to produce religious pictures great altar-pieces for churches and smaller ones for chapels or the stimulation Ri lfi his . do of private devotion According to , Giorgione was employed by Rido lfi master to help in the making of such pictures . But also records that the subjects he chose fo r his own independent works were mythological tales of gods and goddesses and that with these he decorated the fronts o f chests ’ f Rid lfis l and the acades and walls of houses . Several pages of o book are fi led o f with the names and descriptions such works , almost all of which time has ”

f . devoured . The Birth of Paris , there ore, was a subject quite in his line It ’ Gio r io ne s is , however, important to note that, about the time of g apprentice S hip , Bellini was being attracted by a type of subject of a character novel to f i . r ll him, to wit , the pa nting ofAllegories The in ormed eader wi not need to o f be reminded ofthe set little pictures ofthis kind, made perhaps as decoration

f . for some piece of urniture, and now in the Academy Gallery in Venice It i All has puzzled art students to explain their mean ng and to trace its source . T co rm n that here concerns us is to note the novelty . hey give evidence ofthe g ofa new spirit into Venetian art .

2 6 M R 1 0 A O E elaborate picture of the same category, painted by Bellini about 49 ' e Fi or perhaps a year or two lat r, is the Allegory ( g. 3) which hangs in the fﬁz i U Gallery in Florence . We now know that it is an illustration o f a poem

’ written in the fourteenth century by Guillaume de De guilville entitled Peler A ’ ’ f ina e ae l A me . o f g A ter the invention of printing , editions and translations it were published in various countries . It seems to have enjoyed considerable ’

. i popularity The scene of Bellini s picture s Paradise . The little children are the souls of the Blessed . The tree in the centre is the Tree o f Life . The n onlookers are the Virgin and certain Sai ts . The background is a river and hills of an artificial character to which we shall presently return . What we have now to observe is that, though the figures introduced represent sacred o f is personages , the spirit the work by no means the old traditional religious f Spirit of mediaeval paintings but is idyllic . There is the reshness o f th e new u fi ur — e s St . age breathing from it, and that though the individ al g Peter, St . — - Sebastian, and the rest are just such as appear in contemporary altar pieces . They are the old pieces but combined by an entirely new formula and they are grouped in the open air in the midst of what is intended to be a in f . o f n natural landscape The atmosphere, act, is that the approachi g

Renaissance . Ifthe head o fthe workshop which the young and impressionable Giorgione ’ n entered was thus i fected with the modern spirit, we may be sure that Bellini s hf a yout ul assistants were f r more radical . All vigorous young artists are liable to catch on to the newest thing— to regard their teachers as old—fashioned and themselves as rightly sensitive to whatever new ideal is or appears to be u gaining headway . We know little abo t the societies and cliques large and small, illuminated or benighted, which were active in Venice in those days , but r f we may rest assu ed that such cliques existed . We can also be airly certain that Giorgione, who is traditionally asserted to have been excellent company, l o f found his way very quick y into some group artists , students , scholars , poets , and musicians who were in fullest sympathy with the Renaissance and were it active in absorbing and developing s spirit . We obtain a brief but vivid vision of such society in Venice about this time ’ ” o f u f nice in 1 06 t Ve . in one Albert D re s letters sent rom 5 Thereare, hewrites , so many nice men among the Italians who seek my company more and more every day, which is very pleasing to me, men of sense and knowledge , good - n lute players and pipers , judges of pai ting, men of much noble sentiment and ” F honest virtue, and they Show me much honour and friendship . Dr . G . .

2 7 GIORG I ONE

Hartlaub1 w as led to pursue an enquiry into the social groups and societies

which existed throughout Italy and especially in Venice at this time . He ﬁnds o evidence of the formati n of open Academies and more or less secret societies , f some of which revived gnostic and other heresies , or rankly endeavoured to

practise pagan rites , while others cultivated Astrology, Magic, and various n o f mysticisms . Ceremonies of i itiation and stages progress from lower to higher grades of proﬁciency were introduced and the adepts called themselves fm rn Philosophers . These were in fact societies not veryunlike theLodges o o de F u reemasons , and some such groups devoted themselves to the c ltivation of

poetry, literature, and the arts . They had their secret Signs and their recurrent

meetings . Dr . Hartlaub believes that Giorgione belonged to one of these in i Of fﬁ societies and ﬁnds some of his p ctures evidence a liation . Thus he regards the mysterious Three Philosophers as depicting the three stages o f initiation , and he points out that the oldest of them holds a scroll inscribed

with cabalistic ﬁgures . The Dresden Horoscope is a copy of an origin al

' f ri picture by our artist ofa deﬁnitely astrological character . The Birth o Pa s

also hides for Dr . Hartlaub a secret meaning . He does not observe, however, n w h o that if such is the fact, it , ‘must have been by Taddeo Contari i com w as missioned Giorgione to paint two of these pictures , that the young artist

introduced into such a society . Ifthe reader cares to pursue this line o fenquiry ’ f . f hi he Should refer to Dr . Hartlaub s pages Su ice it here to suggest on s behalf

that the peculiar subjects chosen by our artist for his pictures , many of which

are to us inexplicable, may have been dictated by the mystical lucubrations of

' some society o f amateurs feeling their puzzled way into an in te lle ctual world that was posing new problems to the awakenin g intelligence of the young m e n

of a new age . t However agreeable the cultiva ed amateurs , poets , musicians , and the like may have been to Giorgione it is probable that he did not escape from the plague - in o f n f . Dijre r jealousy which i fected his ellow artists , the letter cited above,

says something of this matter . Amongst the Italians , he writes , I have ” n many good friends who warn me not to eat and drink with their pai ters ,

obviously for fearof poison . Many of them are my enemies and they copy ” un my work . And again in anotherletter we read, The painters here are very ” friendly to me . All men except the painters Wish me well . In such a society i n it is evident that a young artist of great prom se, newly arrived from a cou try

home, would need the help of friends and the protection of men of inﬂuence .

1 Gior ione% Gebeim nirf Muni 1 2 . g , ch, 9 5

2 8 G IORG IONE

The most potent agency at this time in spreadin g the New Learning and i n w as n . popularizi g the new ideals the printi g press , and th s especially in Venice Whether the enlargement of kn owledge and the need fo r books brought printing into existence, or whether the press created the demand , need not here

be discussed . Press and public reacted upon one another and carried the n u intellectual and spiritual movement forward . Moreover the growi g po p larity of books illustrated with woodcuts must have tended to draw artists into connection with men of letters and thus to enlarge the area of subjects which artists were stimulated to treat . To enter into a thorough examination of the output ofthe Venetian presses in the days we are considering is not here possible but it will help us if w e cast a rapid glance over some oftheir principal produc 1 0 tions about the year 49 . Printing w as introduced into Venice mainly by craftsmen from across the n Alps , but Italian taste quickly manifested itself in the pri ted page . Already in the seventies beautiful woodcut borders and decorated initial letters became characteristic of some of the presses , but such woodcut illustrations as were at ﬁrst sparingly introduced were rather roughly cut beside being Teutonic in ’ u Trinm bi 1 8 8 ill character . With the iss e of Petrarch s p in 4 a new type of ustra tion appeared and the six large woodcuts that adorned it were instinct with an ’ ’ na e ntura s Denote eaita ioni . Bo v M Italian spirit The most popular work, z , which issued from the press in the following year and w as reprinted in 1 492 1 o f o f and 493 , contained a much larger number cuts , some them remarkably all c o pretty and examples of the new spirit in illustration, implying also the o f Male rmi o f 1 0 n operation a superior artist as designer . The Bible 49 contai s a great number ofsmall cuts still further removedfrom the old types ofmediaeval n hn tradition . They treat i deed the standard Biblical subjects , but with a fres ess o f invention entirely new, and this is expressed even in those designs which are

8 0 based on the rude woodcuts in the Cologne Bible o f 1 4 .

o f 1 1 u The Plutarch, the Esop , and the Dante 49 were ill strated by the same fu - group of designers . The ll page woodcut which heads the ﬁrst canto of the Inferno is the most elaborate composition executed till then by a Venetian o f reloa woodcutter . It shows us Virgil and Dante among the rocks and trees the orenra f m e dize val , a landscape and ﬁgure design wholly divorced rom the tradi

f . tion . The ollowing year shows furtherprogress in the same direction There is a charming garden scene in the Deeameron where a company o fladies and gentle — men sit in regular order on a semi circular bench with a background o f trellis ’ Masuc c i n /li f fu work and trees . o s N o e no o the same date has a delight l composi 2 9 G I ORG IONE

Golden L e end tion for the dedication page . The g has many attractive o f little vignettes , but best of all perhaps are the charming large woodcuts a n Sai t plucking wild and garden ﬂowers , and many small vignettes which play ’ fully illustrate editions o f Cherubino da Spo le to s Fior de Virta published in

1 492 and 1 493 . A similar print of maidens gathering flowers fills the verso - o f Fioretti della Biblia 1 ofthe title page the of 493 , and to the same year belongs fu a delight lly illustrated edition o f Livy . The most remarkable book illustra o f - in tions that year, however, are the large scale woodcuts which appear a ’ h a s F Ke t m arienlnr. t medical treatise called In hese the figures are . treated in pure outline of fine quality and they are grouped together with no little skill . Is it too bold a leap o f the imagination to suspect that some relation of friend ship o r proximity may have existed between Giorgione and the artist w h o drew these upon the wood-block % At any rate it was into this medium that our artist w as thrown or quickly f penetrated soon a ter his arrival in Venice . It was a society that cared little u w as about the old round of religious s bjects . It not one that debated the — f a It interests of the school men or troubled itsel about medi eval traditions . s as n f Bible w the writi gs ofthe classical authors o Rome . It thought more about f the myths ofthe old gods than the legends o Saints . The old proprieties were

e . w a as n b ing broken down A yw being forced i to a ne w world . These young

e . men wer , or at least ﬂattered themselves that they were, pagan at heart They looked at the world with the fresh eyes of newly awakened children . Among them the freshest, the gayest, the cleverest, and perhaps the most attractive may well have been the lad from Castelfranco whose short life w as to be so rich in expression of the n e w spirit .

3 0

G IORGIONE running back into the hills cannot but have reminded Giorgione of the valley i beh nd his home which he must have known very well indeed . I refer to the n valley ofthe Brenta which ﬂows out into the plai at Bassano . With this clearly ’ in his memory he had no occasion to adhere to Bellini s treatment . He merely had to paint the thing that he knew not indeed directly from nature but from his recollection . Having had no little experience in the making of mountain—surveys and o f o f n n the reading maps mountain districts , I felt convi ced by exami ation of — a large scale map that the landscape behind the Finding o f Paris depicts the View up the Brenta Valley . Accordingly I lost no time in assuring myselfon f the spot of the correctness o my deduction . I took the next available train f nz . n rom London and travelled through to Vice a Arriving there next eveni g, - l n I arranged for a motor car to call for me early on the fo lowing morni g . I instructed the driver to take me to Bassano and showed him the photographs f of my two pictures and the landscapes . With the ready intelligence o Italians in all matters concerning aspects o f nature and affairs of art he at once entered into the spirit ofmy quest . Away we went over the ﬂat plain among the fertile

fields and through successive villages . In a couple o fhours or so we approached f su the foot o the hills where a valley debouched upon the plain . I wrongly p posed it to be the Brenta and was astonished to find that instead ofthe landscape ” o f F at the back the inding of Paris , the thing before my eyes was the other landscape behind the Paris given to nurse . My mistake was quickly corrected . This was not the Brenta Valley at all but another about four miles o fit— o f west the valley in the mouth ofwhich lies the fortified city Marostica, whose walls and towers rose prominently before me . Delighted with this h unexpected discovery we proceeded on our way to the Brenta . W en we had left Marostica a mile or two behind along the Bassano road we had the o f actual view it as shown in the picture . Presently, on rounding the corner into the Brenta Valley there was the other View equally clearly identifiable . My search was successfully accomplished and the day was still young enough a f to permit me to visit Bass no and Castel ranco and to proceed to Mestre, whence a motor-boat took me to Venice by way o f all the length o fthe Grand Canal a line o f approach which every lover o f Venice should take at least once in a f li etime . But to return to the Brenta Valley as you enter it from Bassano a con spic uo us mountain rib is passed on the (proper) left bank o fthe river advanc ing beyond it within the valley you encounter villages or hamlets with their

3 2.

G IORG IONE

F r o f toes in the water . u ther on comes the principal town the valley, Val

stagna, here depicted among the trees with a church tower near its right end . n At this point the valley forks . The main bra ch bends round and away on Fre nz e la o ff f the right, while a rather narrow gorge, the Val , leads to the le t w as and mounts to Asiago , a name that in every mouth during the War . The i i - - h lls nowadays will be found deeply ncised by well graded zig zag roads , which i f in were made for war purposes , and h gh alo t guns used to be position . The hills behind Valstagna are much more lofty than they are made to appear by f o as . our young artist, whose notion scale was rudimentary, noted above In

hi . fact they are far too gh for any castle to surmount them When, therefore , w e observe in the picture a castle on the skyline and a farm half-w aydown below ’ n it, the reason for their introduction is because our painter had Belli i s picture before him and reduced the scale of the hills in order to include the human i element of buildings as in h s prototype . w e It is not, however, only in the broad features of the landscape that can

recognize in the picture the memory and influence ofthe Brenta neighbourhood . h o Details are taken from the same locality . Those w suggested a Bergamask f fo r o f n f origin for these pictures may be orgiven ignorance mountai orm, but why did they not observe the chimneys which have the Shape peculiar to the Veneto% Only one or two old chimneys survivin g in the Brenta Valley in 1 926 exemplified the pattern universal in the fifteenth century in o f in these parts . Existing houses , moreover, are the same type as those the

l . A lington pictures . There are the same outside staircases There are wooden galleries exactly like that on the house in the left-middle distance ofthe Find - o f ll . ing Paris . The trees on the hi sides are curiously tufty in aspect At several points they can be found growing along the top edge o f a cliff as in To is as n the same picture . make a long story short, it as certain anythi g can ’ be that the landscape at the back o f the Finding of Paris is Gio rgio ne s

memory o f the landscape in the Lower Brenta Valley . n Turni g now to the second picture , Paris given to nurse, the principal f is n o utl e r eature in the landscape a castle crowni g a mountain y , behind which - a valley penetrates into the depth ofthe hill country . The characteristic feature ofthis castle is that it is united to a walled enclosure below by tw o walls descend in g to it and that all the walls are strengthened by towers . In fact, we behold

a walled town surmounted by and connected with a hill fortress . Having travelled all along the foot ofthe north Italian hills I am able to assert that there are only two castellated towns o f this type which can come into question C 3 3 GIORG IONE

o f Soave (famed for its Wine) near Verona, and Marostica four miles west Bas w as sano . No one will suggest that our artist a Veronese, and Soave does

not possess the necessary features . Marostica does . There can be no doubt

but that the painter had Marostica in mind when he w as composin g this picture . Perhaps some readers may remember that Marostica w as the base o f supplies

for this part ofthe Italian front during the late war . We noted that the subject of the Birth o f Paris was derived from a pas in sage a book published at Venice in 1 494 . The Allington pictures are of a w e n slightly later date . This may conclude from the costumes of the you g - t in - men with their close ﬁt g hose and tight short skirted jerkins . The fashion is exactly the same as in the Venetian woodcuts issued about this time and in ’ 1 Gentile Bellini s Procession picture of 496 . Another small but important n coi cidence conﬁrms this conclusion . It is known that the youthful Albert

' Diire r Visited Venice and spent some months there on two occasions first 1 o f 1 m 1 06 in the latter part of 494 and the early months 495 , the second ti e in 5 o rk th e l w as already mentioned above . It is known that he greatly admired of l Giovanni Bellini and that he took many hints from it . There sti l exists a page of his sketch-book on which he drew a pen-and-in k outline of a nude child i evidently from a picture by Bellin i and probably one of the Nativity (F g. fin d I cannot that this picture exists , but a Child very similar in type and pose is in a Madonna by him in the National Gallery . It happens that Giorgione imitated this same child in the Allington Findin g o f Paris - Fi 1 . ( g. the dating of which to about the year 495 6 is thereby confirmed

34 F IG 6 DETAIL O F THE FIN D ING O F P AR IS .

F IG 7 A D R AW ING B % AL B R E CHT

D U R E R (re versed)

GIORGIONE

Let us at this point pause to observe some of the conclusions to which w e

are inevitably driven by the facts thus se t down . We have identiﬁed a group of

six pictures all obviously by one and the same youthful artist . They were — painted about 1 494 6 when Giorgione w as from seventeen to nineteen years of f age . This young artist was by birth familiar with the landscape at the oot of the hills where they rise from the plain at the back of Castelfranco where Gio r i six g o ne was born . One of these pictures is directly imitated from a picture f w as . by Giovanni Bellini, which painted rather be ore the date in question It ’ is therefore prima faeie probable that our young artist became Bellini s pupil

about this time . No other painter except Giorgione fulﬁls these conditions . — — Tw o of the six pictures the two versions o f The Birth of Paris are ’ recorded in letters written on the occasion of Gio rgio ne s death as having been n Be cca F f painted by him for Contari i and ro . i teen years later a competent o f observer records one them as being still, in the same ownership and states ’ a f Gio r io ne s that it w s one o g early works . A century later two other pictures six ofthis group of were in the Vendramin collection atVenice, wheretheybore m the name of Giorgione . We therefore stand upon the ﬁr e st possible ground in taking these six pictures as the sure basis for study of the early work of the

great Venetian master . If they do not ﬁt in with the preconceived ideas of SO certain experts , much the worse for the experts Considering these six pictures together the main feature they possess in

common is elaborate and naturalistic landscape . Such landscapes were an entirely new thing in Venice and indeed in Italy . They were not painted in subordination to figures or to be a background to some dominant motive of i human or religious nterest . It was rather the other way about ; the figures are subordinate to the landscape . This is progressively the case, for the last of six f but u the contains no oreground figures at all, j st three little men in the m iddle distance obviously introduced merely to liven up the scene . Though two at least of these six landscapes are based upon identifiable views of places ’ Gio r io ne s near g home, they are far from being literal transcripts of nature . ’ They are illumined by the painter s personal vision, which shed upon the thing seen a certain glamour expressing his emotion rather than merely his observa ’ u n Gi r i tion . This imaginative ill mi ation irradiates all o g o n e s work with ever increasing distinction and becomes the real Subject whereunto every feature introduced, whether human or terrestrial, is but a contributing factor . Such was the new thing which Giorgione brought to the common stock of pictorial art in his school and day . It was not derived by imitation from 3 6

F IG 8 A L AND AP o m the V n d m i n C t SC E . Fr e ra a alogue F IG P AR IS AND THE THR E GO DD E S S 9 E ES . Fro m th e Ven dram i n Catalogue

GIORG IONE

n any predecessor but w as of his o w origination . It came to him as a birth i i It in . n right . appeared his earliest ndependent work It developed each his successive production . It passed from him to young contemporaries , whose eyes it opened to a new world, or rather Whose eyes it enabled to view the tu ne w ac al world about them with a vision, and whose imagination it endowed with a ne w creative power . Thus Giorgione awoke the enthusiasm ofthe youth his di n of day by scovering to them a delightful novelty, a newly i vented art, o f n h expressive and beautiful, which raised the emotion livi g to a igher plane, and transmuted its everyday experiences into a kind of golden tissue . In the vision thus presented to them the familiar world w as beheld with an un wonted light upon it, a world in which the beautiful had become strange . It 1 w as a great revelation .

1 Se e th e ﬁr t o lum n in th e Lite rar Su le m e nt o f Tbe Fe b ruar 1 2 s c y pp 3 y, 9 7 .

3 7 THERE can be observed in the 5 1x pictures certain tricks or mannerisms such as we ﬁnd characterizing the work of every artist . Nothing is

' drearier to read than a catalogue o f resemblances between details in a group o f U u o f pictures . nfortunately, I m st here set out a few such resem blances , but I will cut them as short as possible . Let me begin with gestures , because the gestures depicted by a painter are as characteristic o f him as are u in Fo r the gestures employed by an individ al emphatic speech . present pur poses I will cite only two the right arm flung out horizontally or bent at the f o f elbow across the ront the body . These same gestures occur both in the Ufliz i n Solomon and in the Allington panels , where they i dicate the persons who are actually speaking and differentiate them from onlookers and hearers . n fin d tu o f I can ot these gestures in the pic res any other artist of the period, though I have widely sought . They are peculiar to Giorgione . The standing figures in these early pictures lead on by an easy transition to

; m . . the man in the Giovanelli picture, and fro him to the S Liberale Well ’ o f all Gio r io ne s tu drawn legs are a virtue g pic res . Veronese did him the com plim e nt of actually copying into one o f his pictures now in the Hermitage % the leg and surroundin g drapery of the Judith in the same gallery . The as F i trick ofmaking a figure turn its full back upon the spectator, in the ind ng ” of Paris , is also repeated in other pictures by our artist . The little figures in the middle distance of the Paris pictures are worth Tw o v careful observation . seated on the ground in the Paris gi en to nurse u are of such un sual grace as almost to amount to a signature . Giorgione to the end of his days w as fond of seating figures on the groun d . The drawing o f these two fundamentally resembles that o f the figures in the Fete ebampitre . If anyone desires to se e how differently another artist treated such figures let il him examine the pictures by Cariani in the galleries o f Berlin and M an . They - b belong to a very different type . Other middle distance figures in pictures y as i t Giorgione run about in an agitated fashion , in the second Vendram n pic ure, mi ” m i and in the Se nario Apollo and Daphne . A fa ly likeness runs through ll them a . Gio r The long rods which several o fthe men carry are a significant detail . io n e g was fond of the accent of these sharp straight lines . They appear again % m i o f Uffi in in the Vendra n Judgment Paris , in the Moses in the zi, the i l Giovanelli picture, in the Prado Virg n and in the Apol o and f ’ Daphne, in the Budapest ragment, in Lord Northampton s picture, and most prominently in the exaggeratedly long lance of S . Liberale in the Castel

3 8

GI ORGIONE M One more feature let me cite and I have done . antegna had a habit of introducing into his foregrounds little Stones lyin g about and very sharply f im defined . Giovanni Bellini borrowed the trick rom h and handed it on to ’ Giorgione . These little stones in the latter s foregrounds are characteristic fin Uffi . d ofhis early works We them in the Paris series , in the zi panels , in the ” ” Giovanelli Tempest, and in the Vienna Philosophers . But an end to peddlin g over such details l I cite them and could cite many more only to confound the sceptic . It is not by details , but by whole pictures Se e that an artist appeals to the spectator . It is because every time I the Paris panels they give me that Shock ofidentitywhereby one recognizes a friend in the street, that I know them to be the expression of the personality of the most charming and lovable of Venetian painters . Here we behold the budding f n in o . se e o w his genius We him influenced by Bellini, yet maintaining his di i alit v du yand going his own way . Ifhe takes from his master a hint for com position , he employs his own materials and deals freely with the formula . Gio r io ne s ue h Should anyone, admitting the obviously g q c aracter of these o f hi paintings , claim them for the work an imitator, he will find mself in sore

% f . h straits . outh ul artists , eighteen years of age, do not have imitators T is young imitator, had he existed, must have been a young genius himself. Where his t % are other pic ures Moreover, he must have possessed prophetic gifts , n w as oin for he imitated not merely what Giorgione , had pai ted, but what he g g to paint % What name can anyone suggest % Cariani % Cariani w as a Berga mask, and there is no Bergamask element here . Landscape, ﬁgures , conception , — n . w e spirit all are Venetia Shall say Bissolo , then , or Catena Both of them ’ l w e came from the March ofTreviso and entered Bel ini s studio , but know their o f styles well enough, and there is not a trace them discoverable in the Paris

. fo r pictures It is , however, lost labour to hunt analogies among the works ’ oflittle men . In the early nineties in Venice there was no other man, young or old, to whom it is possible to refer these pictures except to Giorgione . They n o fhis fall into li e at the head paintings . His art proceeds logically from them , f and no other explanation o them is possible . — Thus I have shown that the Allin gton pictures were painted about 1 495 6 If w as 1 by a young pupil of Giovanni Bellini . that pupil aged eighteen in 495 w as a w as f he born in the same year as Giorgione . I h ve shown that he amiliar l- with the hil landscape nearest to Castelfranco, in or in the neighbourhood of n which city Giorgione was born . At the begin ing of his career our artist o f u painted ﬁve pictures incidents in the story of Paris . Three of these pict res

40 m ust

It cannot be done .

4 1 BEFOR E leaving the Allington pictures a word may be said about their condition when they came into my possession and about the ' circum stance s of f hi . o s their purchase Dr . Ludwig Justi in the recently published new edition work on Giorgione states that the heads in the Allington panels are so much f f is restored that it is impossible to draw conclusions rom them . Now the act h a un that none of the heads s been restored at all . They are in their original touched condition . The panel of the Paris given to nurse was cracked F right across above the heads and through the recumbent cattle . The inding f a an o Paris needed only trifling repairs . In neither picture w s yimportant feature damaged . It may entertain a reader if I for a moment suspend the logical sequence w as of my argument to relate how we came by these pictures . It in the year - d o f 1 0 r h . Panh ar 9 3 when we had just bought our fi st motor car, a 7 p , such relatively rudimentary construction as still to be equipped with what w as called ” o fire ignition . N sooner did we come into proud and delighted possession ’ o f o ff w e fo r F hi us it than went a two months tour in rance, w ch carried after far many adventures to Biarritz . Tyres were from good in those days and I suppose ours were worn . At any rate, when making for St . Jean de Luz one w e f w e morning were arrested by our successive punctures , each ofwhich labori l e o us . w y patched by the roadside, only to have them burst again Then had w e engine trouble, and to make a long story short hobbled back to Biarritz late in the afternoon having never reached St . Jean de Luz . A day or two later w as we started again and were again stopped by one trouble after another . I f n n o r returni g to our hotel . My wife insisted on goi g on . She was certain n that somethi g awaited us there . We ultimately arrived in time for a late w as lunch . While it preparing I wandered down the main street and looked

antioa . into the shops , ﬁnding nothing that kindled my desires After lunch f w e as . sallied orth together and drew a blank I had foretold Rather disgusted , w e w a made our y to the seashore, where ﬁshing boats were drawn up , nets - ” a . mending, and cottages as a background . Let us start away, I suggested ”

she Is . No, said, there certainly something for us hereabouts Ask that ” old ﬁsh e rw o m an whether there is not someone here w h o h as pictures for sale . w as n ask ﬁshw ife I did as I bid, though feeli g that to the good such a question as he ate nce I w . s o rather absurd But to my surprise answered, Oh, yes In that house there is a woman who has a lot of pictures and other things for ” sale . We entered the cottage and I instantly saw hanging on the wall in a dark tw o Gio r i ne s Gio r io ne s corner our g o . I knew at once that they were g and my

42 G IORGIONE instinct has proved to be correct . We paid the price demanded and returned to

Biarritz, having no more punctures or other trouble by the way . The local ’ dealer had bought the pictures as Carpaccios at the sale o fthe Duke o fO ssun a s

C n . ollection , i to which they had come from the Alberelli collection at Verona

By a strange coincidence, just when I was ﬁnding these pictures at St . Jean M n r a f U o o ne e t w s o r . de Luz, M . g de Villard enquiring them in Italy In the process ofpreparin g his book on Giorgione he had examined in the Communal o f t Library at Verona a manuscript catalogue the Albarelli collection, enti led G abinetto di nadri r oeolta di e i ori i ali erirtenti in Vero a erro ri i g o a p zz gn n pr il g. Gio Albarelli dire nati da ome/o Caliari eon illnrtra ioni 1 8 . , g R , z (Verona , In this volume he noticed two carefully-made outline drawin gs o f pictures ff which had been attributed to Carpaccio , but which he had no di iculty in f recogniz in g as compositions by Giorgione in his early period . A ter his book l w as n . saw already pri ted, but before it was issued, M de Vi lard the photo o f hi in Earlin ton graphs the pictures themselves , w ch were published the g Ma a ine r g z , and thus he was enabled to insert at the last moment an ext a page, f with copies of the reproductions acing his reproductions of the drawings . He added a note which runs as follows 1

B t a i 1 0 urlin on M a ne . In the November, 9 4, number of the g g z H Cook announced that he had discovered in the collection o f Sir Martin Conway tw o w f pictures hich he had attributed to Giorgione . These are in act the two which

l . were once in the Albarel i collection at Verona The discovery, after ” 1 h w as o ff l . t is book printed , compe led me to add this note

1 M nn r illa ior io arte rane B m 1 0 2 nd 1 06 U o o e e t de V rd G ne da C o. e r a o . 6 a . g g lf g , 9 4, pp

43 HAVIN G thus established a ﬁrm foundation on which to build the superstructure ’ Gio r io ne s of g pictorial output, let us proceed to examine those pictures which F can be grouped with the foregoing as work by the same artist . irst let me introduce to the reader a picture to which I have already called attention in the t i f f F Earling on Magaz ne ( rontispiece) . It belongs to Pro essor rank Jewitt Mather o f w as o f ff F and bought byhim at the sale the e ects ofClyde itch, - the dramatist . It obviously belongs to the Paris series and depicts the ne w born f . all infant exposed at the oot of Mount Ida The picture, like known work by

Giorgione done upon panels, is very thinly painted with little preparation . It f sufie re d h as has there ore a good deal at the hands of time . It not, however, been repainted and is a valuable example of the young artist’ s development Fo r as a landscape painter . this is a landscape pure and simple, the child being n i — a mere accessory detail . The colouri g s rich dark in the foreground and f yet urther darkened by age , the hour being either that of sunrise or sundown, - the green blue sky fading to a silvery yellow at the horizon . A pale rose f ’ flush illumines the tower o the greyish violet castle . The tree s spotty foliage k f silhouetted against the s y is characteristic O Giorgione . His imaginative fi Vision trans gure s the scene . The picture opens a window into a world the hi like of w ch had never been beheld by human eye till Giorgione revealed it . In point of date this must be the latest o f the Paris pictures and w e may pro visionally assign it to about 1 497 . Next in succession w e have to consider two small panels in the Uffiz i Gallery

F . 1 0 1 I ( igs and ), which have been almost universally accepted as early works by tw o e ourartist, though somewouldattribute them to assistants paintingund r the immediate supervision ofBellini . The pictures were already together at Poggio 2 h 1 6 . t e Imperiale, the summer residence of the Medici, in 9 They depict ” % ” Ordeal of Moses , a Rabbinical legend, and the Judgment of Solomon .

A comparison between them and the Paris series , while it shows many resem blances , gives evidence ofthe strengthening ofthe influence of Bellini upon his follower: The pictures contain many features in common with Bellini’ s Uff Allegory, which, as it hangs with them in the same izi Gallery, can easily be compared . The arrangement of the figures in a row across the foreground n with an elaborate landscape behi d, the tallness of them, the character of their ” c ice f drapery link the pair with the Allegory . The h o o subject again is not ’ ” i e i n e Gio r o n s . w in g l ne Bellini in the Allegory, while choosing a type o f n subject, Still kept within the religious area, whereas Giorgione when pai ting n on his own account plunged from the first i to the pagan tradition . Here he 44

F IG I O THE JU D GM NT O F S OL OMON U z z G E jﬁ allery.

GIORG IONE

i % e t is working under the orders of Bell ni . there are many details in these f pictures which mark the handiwork of Giorgione . Note the gestures o the people who are speaking—the arm flung out horizontally either way from or ” F n o f across the body they are the same as in the i ding Paris . The hand with n the first fi ger extended is a notable little feature in these and the Paris series . There are also the eyes near together which Morelli selected as a mark o f f Giorgione . Note again the remarkable similarity between the in ant Moses ” and the Paris given to nurse . In the middle distance are little figures t with long Slender staffs . Moreover the style ofthe landscapes possesses Gio gio ne sq ue qualities and some characteristic details such as the round-arched in arcades above noted . Finally the trees thick clumps or lightly traced against sk in the yare such as w e have learned to expect pictures by our artist . The best conclusion appears to be that these two pictures were painted by Giorgione ’ ’ in Bellini s studio , perhaps from the master s design , and more or less directly hi under s supervision . From the Paris series w e are led by an easy sequence to a group o f three u Fi pictures the Orpheus and E rydice at Bergamo ( g. the Apollo i and Daphn e in the Seminario della Salute at Venice (F g. and the decora ll Fi tive landscapes with figures in the Ga ery at Padua ( g. The Bergamo ’ u i i Bo re n ius pict re w as identified by Morelli as G o rg o ne s work . Dr . in his edition o fthe Andrea Vendramin catalogue shrewdly observes that the drawin g i of the Paris and the Three Goddesses (F g. 9) represents a picture by the ” as same hand the Bergamo Orpheus . e t but Som have attributed the Bergamo pic ure to Cariani, observe where a ” u is Cariani attribution would lead uS . Ifthe Orphe s by the same hand as the ” in w as Vendram Paris , which obviously by the same painter as Paris given to nurse and the other Allington picture , and if that painter was the Berga ’ w as mask Cariani, we Should have to conclude that Cariani working in Bellini s studio about 1 495 and that he was familiar as a youth with the country in the neighbourhood o f Castelfranco Nothin g could be more absurd . The fact nn is that able co oisseurs of Italian art, basing their notions of Giorgione upon o f f the works his maturity, such as the Castel ranco Madonna, the Dresden ” ” il n Venus , and the Vienna Ph osophers , and then endeavouri g to work his e backwards to formative p riod, have involved themselves in such a tangle of incongruities that no two o f them can agree together . Thus they were driven to invent a dear ex maebina to come to their aid and Cariani w as the one

ﬁxed upon .

45 G IORGIONE It happened that when the Allington pictures were receiving ﬁrst aid at Cave na hi o w as the hands of the famous Cavaliere g , the Bergam Orpheus likewise under his care and I had the good fortune to se e it and them Side by

side on the same easel . The fact that all three were the work of one and the as Cave na hi same artist became instantly apparent . They looked, g remarked, f as though one were a piece cut out o the other . They werepaintedfroma single O a palette and with identically the same chord of colour . N one who s w them together could possibly doubt their identity o f origin . ’ Gio r io ne s Lomazzo praises g originality in colouring, and states that he f l n o f used only our principal co ours , attaini g various tints by a combination f us u those . With the pictures themselves be ore it wo ld be both easy and inter ’ esting to illustrate Lo m az z o s statement . All the pictures referred to in the f present study, rom the Paris series down to the Giovanelli Tempest at n its Venice, are painted from a single palette but with increasi g skill in employ is f ment . This identity the strongest proo that the pictures in question were t all pain ted by one hand . Unfor unately it is futile to attempt in words to p rove what can but be demonstrated by a direct appeal to the eye . I can therefore ask only state that this identity ofcolouring exists , and must the reader to accept my statement till such time as he has opportunity to verify it in the presence of the pictures themselves . ’ ' In the Bergamo Orpheus Gio rgio ne s romanticism attains completer Th e f expression than in the earlier pictures . landscape has become fanci ul l n n o f whi e still maintai i g, in the details which it is constructed, a respect for o f w his s nature . The mass rock tossed up in the midst, with p of trees like i ff O . foam scatter ng it, does not belong to the world of every day It forms the upper part o f a rough pyramid whose outlines descend to left and right to the f corners o the picture . This large and mainly dark protuberance is diversiﬁed ” by mysterious patches of light, as in the Princeton Paris , and the weird effect is heightened by the juxtaposition ofa sort o fblast furnace and associated machinery ofwheels and so forth, all glowing with ﬁre and horrid with smoke -a thing of fury and tumult, suggestive, I suppose, of the Hades to which

Eurydice, ifit be she, must return , in contrast to the fair and peaceful landscape

n . Tw o stretching away i to the distance on the other side agitated people, a man and a girl , rush about in opposite directions among these wild surround ”

. l an d f ings The picture is ca led Orpheus Eurydice, for no su ﬁcient reason

se e . h as s that I can What the frightened girl prominent in the foreground, who e — heel is being attacked by a dragon from whom sh e shrinks away what has

GIORGIONE sh e to do with Eurydice% After all a name is of no consequence . The reader should O bserve the clever building up of the composition on two main parallel ’ ’ diagonals one from the girl s head to the dragon s tail, the other from the o f top of the rock to the little white girl on the right . Details characteristic ' Giorgione are the rather awkwardly bent leg o f the foreground lady (the like o f w e ﬁn d o f which Shall again in the Giovanelli picture), the attitudes the little ’ runn ers (the man s exactly repeatedfrom the Paris and the Three Goddesses o f F n and the overhanging crest rock, as in the indi g of Paris , the Vienna ” ” f . il Philosophers , and the Dresden Venus A sim ar dragon may be ound ” is in an engraving by Giulio Campagnola, called the Astrologer, which believed to have been made after a design by Giorgione .

47 THE el Apollo and Daphne, which is in the Seminario d la Salute at i i ’ G o r o ne s . Venice, belongs to this period of g activity It is one of the very Ri lﬁ do . few surviving pictures out of the long list given by Here, once more , ’ the main part of the area at the painter s disposal is devoted to landscape . n sk Again we have a faintly pi k sunset y, a darkish foreground splashed with light, and land undulating away into the distance ; but the country villages which the youthful Giorgione loved to draw are now replaced by a group o f

Stately buildings , square and high, with domes and towers and much pretence, ll u and there is a ﬁne bridge and under it a waterfa , q ite. a wonderful piece of fairyland . Scattered about are several isolated ﬁgures such as Giorgione liked Tw o to draw . of them carry a rod upon their shoulders for no other reason An f than just because our painter liked rods . other urther back is Apollo over again—the same Apollo who appears large and twice over in the fore - ground . This third Apollo is holding communication with a cloud surrounded

. n a cherub in the air What legendary incident is thus alluded to I can ot s y. His little pink Skirt again flaps prettily in the wind and he is a delightful f f W h creature, so youth ul and resh and altogether charming . One wonders y f tw o i Daphne should run away rom him . These figures expla n themselves clearly enough , he in eager pursuit, she with frightened arms breaking i the into laurel branches . But why is Apollo painted over aga n in other corner with his back to the picture and vigorously drawing his bow to % Rido lfi shoot out of it The reason is because, as records , Apollo is in 1 2 1 8 act to slay the python . He thus describes this picture (p . 5 in the 3 5 : n edition) He pai ted Python , the serpent slain by Apollo, and the same god following the fair daughter o fPeneus w h o changed her arms in to branches 1 n and into leaves of laurel . Obviously the part of the panel containi g the python has been cut away and the picture in its present condition is incomplete . l i The Python presumab y balanced Daphne, and the great group of bu ldings behind occupied the centre o f the background . o f Giorgione was very casual in his treatment mythological subjects . w as i and He quite careless about the text, merely tak ng from it in a vague o f his general fashion the prompting rather than the subject picture . The adventures of Paris do not closely correspond with the legend except where he i diff cult . s is shown with the three Goddesses It . 1 to interpret the Orpheus ”

if . w e and Eurydice, that be its true title, in terms of the pagan tale Nor do

1 A rena nrato itone rer ente neeiro da A olline ed il mederimo dio Je nendo la bella lia ﬁg P p p , g ﬁg ’ ” di eneo ebe radiate lo iante nel terreno ean iaea le braeeia in rami ed in rondi d alloro . P , p , g f 48

G IORGIONE

but more elaborately composed, more solidly painted , and more skilfully

wrought . I refer to the painting in the Giovanelli collection at Venice, which ” F ” has been variously entitled the Tempest, the amily of Giorgione, and Fi h o w Adrastus and Hypsipyle ( g. The legend of these latter relates the % ueen Hypsipyle w as driven out of Lemnos by a conspiracy and ho w the o King discovered her disguised as a nurse . N one would guess from the emotionless pair in the picture that such w as its subject ; and again no one i w as o f i need care, for the beauty of the th ng the purpose its mak ng and is 1 0 its justiﬁcation . Marcantonio Michiel saw it in 5 3 when it belonged to Gabriel Vendramin and thus described it The little landscape on canvas with the Tempest with the gipsy and soldier w as by the hand o f Zorzi da f ” 1 Castel ranco . fe w It is therefore one of the pictures authentically recorded , very soon f i ’ Gio r o n e s n . a ter g death, as havi g been painted by him

Here, again, the chieffigures are placed on either hand in the foreground dl w as di n n She no less awkwar y posed than Eury ce, he standi g senti el with a f ” in o . w as rod beside him, just like one of the shepherds the Birth Paris It l his w as not upon the figures, however, that Giorgione avished care, nor it i h s m . s they which fired i agination Here for the first time, so far as his urviving

f o f . works in orm us , he attained entire expression of his vision landscape Though all the parts were studied from nature the union of the m into a splendid

whole was wrought within the ﬁery furnace o fhis glorious imagination . Here - is a stream with plashing water and rocky plant embellished banks . Here, ” ﬂat F n again , is a wooden bridge, as in the i ding of Paris, but now in proper

proportion to its place and purpose . Here are noble buildings with towers and — domes and Venetian chimneys emergin g from and framed by trees thick ' — - clumps of them as well as one with lace like foliage silhouetted again st the sk e y, almost equivalent to a signature . It is painted a light brown , whil the hi n t ck clumps are green . The little stones reappear in the foregrou d . The is grass rather green, the water dark blue in the pool beyond the Shallow ; t k hi the umultuous s y is very blue . The w te of vest and cloak is a solid and i brilliant white, necessitating the invention of a pair of otherwise nexplicable broken columns on a pedestal to balance and bring the white patches into har — ’ a n artist S . . mony remarkable i stance of the resourcefulness Dr Hartlaub , n n mn however, ﬁ ds a cabalistic meani g for these colu s and other features in the picture . He may be right .

Elpaeretto in tela eon 1a temperta eon la tingana e roldato fa de man de Zorzi da Cartelfraneo . 5 O Ph o to ( 11m m 1

F IG 1 THE 7 TEMP E S T T he Ge o van e lle Co lle e ti o n

GIORG I ONE

aff n i All this is the mere sc oldi g ofthe composition . What gives it ts poetic ’ appeal and makes the spectator s heart beat faster when his eye is first turned o f i -u upon it is the magical play light, illuminating the edges of the p led p n - sk rai clouds in the y, pouring down from a hidden source upon palaces and houses , glinting upon the water, and illuminating the man and woman in the If tu as w as— foreground . ever pic re w conceived in passion surely this con c e ive d i n in passion , though designed with cold and d ligent care, and pai ted with patient dexterity . Here are summed up the experience and the emotion of all ’ Gi r i o g o ne s youth . This and the works that preceded and led up to it are the his Ste/rm and Dran outcome and expression of days of g, and the proof of o f o f his o w n his close observation and study nature, or rather exalted moods in her presence . It bears to the thing portrayed a relation , somewhat like that ’ o f of Shelley s poem to the Skylark, in which the automatic trilling a little bird is transfigure d into angelic music . The Giovanelli picture is the last in this kind that h as come down to us from the great and precociously mature artist . Henceforward he seems to have lived in wonderful serenity, a decade or thereabouts of golden days . One wonders whether—one is even tempted to guess that—about this time (he - o f being, say, some twenty four years age) a woman may have come into his Ri lfi ff o f . do life, bringing with her tender a ection and peace heart suggests ” Ultimamente e li anena reeo n a raa ia . n that so it may have been , he writes , g ” nam rata 1 as sh e e e o . W the model whose features w think w can trace in three o f the pictures which still await our discussion%

1 He als o says that Mo rto da Fe ltre sto le h e r fro m him an d that h e die d o fgrie f in c o nse l In a t h e die d o f th e a u . q ue nce . f c p g e

5 1 THE earliest picture expressing this new mood of the painter is one in the l co lection ofthe Marquis of Northampton . It may be called The Soldier and ” i the young Mother (F g. In composition and ideas it resembles the ” w e n Giovanelli Tempest . In both behold a woma and child seated on the ground on one side and a man with a longrod orlancestanding on the other and th f paying little or no attention to the lady . In both the landscape is e feature o predominant importance . Its peaceful domestic character is in marked con ” - trast to the tumultuous atmosphere of the Tempest . Here a dream like - stillness is all pervading . A towered homestead nestling against trees upon a mound is massed into a pyramidal form dom inating the whole composition f ” as we observed in the background o the Bergamo Orpheus . The prominent tree in the foreground is of the type borrowed by Giorgione from Bellini f and adhered to throughout his career . The little woman seated at the oot of

- it is the most charming female ﬁgure thus far created by him . The soldier

will remind every instructed person of S . Liberale with the long lance in the f ﬁ iire s Castel ranco Madonna . I do not venture to suggest what the g are f n supposed to be concerned about, but the picture alls withi one category of those attributed by Rido lﬁ to Giorgione which he thus describes In the shadow of pleasant trees there stood men and women happily enjoying the ” 1 ’ tranquil air . Its appeal is not to the spectator s intelligence but to his emotion . 1 8 Reference has already been made above (p . ) to the tower and the farmhouse o f in the background, both which seem to be connected with features of Bas

sano , the nearest town to Castelfranco where, possibly, Giorgione may have

begun his artistic education .

To me this picture is of special interest because another by Lorenzo Lotto , l as which is in my own col ection, was obviously suggested by it . Lotto, we

nl his . know, though o y slightly younger than Giorgione, was one of followers AS an artist Lotto w as always very sensitive to the inﬂuences by which he w as

surrounded . When those changed so did his style . His early work displays so his discipleship and indeed plainly that when, thirty years ago , I found my picture in Milan and proudly carried it to the shrine ofthose tw o oracles ofthe Friz z o ni day, Morelli and , for the ﬁrst moment they thought it might be by

Giorgione himself. Brief reﬂection , however, destroyed that illusion, for its tlE: intimate connection with the St . Jerome in Louvre, Signed by Lotto and 1 00 dated 5 , proclaimed its authorship and ﬁxed its date . My Lotto has crept

’ ’ ’ A ll ombra d amene piante ri rtanano deliziano nomini e donne godendo l aara tranquil/a

. 1 2 1 1 8 e ditio n . (p , 3 5 ) 5 2 F IG 1 8 . A GIR L AND A DI / ’ S OL E R ll[ar m s o N o rtlz q f am p to n s Co llec ti o n

GIORGIONE into notice under the false name of Danae . The subject has nothing to do with that lady o f indifferent character but depicts a sleeping maiden whose pure dream of love is suggested by the shower o f blossoms which a hovering

Cupid pours into her lap . A male and a female faun are depicted in the corners Gio r io n e s ue of the foreground, according to the g q tradition, and are evidently intended to express a contrast which might be described as that between pure Th e and sensual love . foot of the sleeping girl is exposed beyond her white i Skirt as in the Giorgione picture . In both the girl is supported aga nst the trunk ’ f i hi n is Gi r i ne s ue o . s s o w o o a tree Lotto s sylvan landscape , but it of g q ’ As 1 06 character . the disciple s picture must be dated about 5 it follows that ’ the master s original cannot be later and may well be two or three years earlier a th n that . Thecalm spirit an d the ﬁgure ofthearmouredmanwiththeverylonghalbert sa in the Northampton picture lead us by an easy, I might y an inevitable step f Fi to the famous Madonna o Castelfranco ( g. which the critics generally - e — assign to about the years 1 5 04 5 . F w pictures none so far as I can recall — among Madonna altar-pieces make so direct and satisfying an appeal to folk of all classes and temperaments . To analyze its almost sacred perfection might be thought sacrilegious ; but I cannot pass unmentioned the various little i i ’ deta ls which link it technically with Gio rg o ne s earlier works . The pyramidal in composition w as predicted the landscapes w e have already noted . In the as background are a pair of his favourite little ﬁgures , one with a rod such w e have so often found . His love of a straight emphatic line here leads to i l n him prolong the lance of S . L bera e, as in the picture just exami ed he ’

l m u . prolonged the soldier s halbert, in both cases with a simi arly ad irable res lt Fo r h e ff the same reason put a long sta into the hand of S . Roch in the Madrid - f Madonna . The towered manor house on the left is a type o ten repeated by ’ Gio r io ne s - is f g followers , and his characteristic lace like tree upli ted before the as faintly golden horizon . The tree is yellowish brown in colour, always , and i k i - so s . s s the grass The y grey blue, the pavement grey and white the land i l s scape s o w in tone and th e distant hills are faint . Thus the Virgin red robe

as u . shines out brilliantly, does the gaily striped dr gget under the blue carpet The study for the armoured saint which is in the National Gallery is well i . w as Tuz o known The picture painted for the Condottiere Costanzo, lord

so n f 1 0 . is of Castelfranco, whose ell in a battle near Ravenna in 5 4 It probable ’ that the altar-piece was intended to commemorate him ; and maybe the Saint s armour had belonged to him . The chord of colour characteristic of the

5 3 GIORG IONE

Giovanelli picture and all its predecessors h as here given place to one in a lower tu ’ key, matching the ma rer artist s more gentle and peaceful mood . The passion that animated those earlier pictures is replaced by a deeper but less ebullient emotion . The tide is flowing in greater volume but with less surface agita fl tion and so it continued to o w to the end . f i f The picture o the Three Ph losophers (Fig. already re erred to w as above, which now hangs in a muchrestored condition in theVienna Gallery, ’ Co n tarin i s i 1 2 seen in Taddeo house n 5 5 by Marcantonio Michiel, who recorded that it w as begun by Giorgione and finished by his pupil Sebastiano del Piombo . ~ ff Learned explanations of its meaning have been o ered, but they in no wise o f affect its value as a work art . The bearded man on the right resembles in many a saint pictures by Bellini and his followers . He doubtless perpetuates the memory of some venerable model Whose beard and bearing qualified him

a . to stand for prophet, saint, or philosopher as occasion dem nded The picture as a whole, however, proclaims the design and expresses the spirit of Giorgione, especially in the seated youth with his so characteristically outstretched foot and in the landscape . Here are the little stones in the stratiﬁed foreground and the overhanging rock fringed With foliage as in the Finding of Paris . The combination of thick clumps and lace-like slender trees is here repeated w e u - once again , and have a village in the backgro nd with long roofed houses , the Whole enveloped in that atmosphere o f peace which nothing seems to ’ fﬂ in Gio r io ne s have ru ed the last years of g activity .

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GIORGI ONE

w as Zo rz o f d landscape with Cupid by the hand of of Castel ranco , but the lan ” Ri lfi scape and the Cupid were finished by Titian . do adds the information that u as n Of C pid w holdi g a bird in his hand . Unfortunately the figure Cupid s e became o much damaged that it w as thought best to paint it out . The d sign ’ o f n Gio r io ne s is the backgrou d was probably g , and this most evident in the o f group of houses , but the details of tree and hill are not his . The like them Noli me tan ere will be found in the g in the National Gallery, which Titian painted about this time . The rock on the left with the outjutting plant repeats ’ Gio r io n e s i with little change one of g earliest conventions , as w ll readily be i seen by comparing it with a like feature in the Finding of Paris (F g. ’ n One more picture and one only remains for the reader s final consideratio . ‘ - Fete ebam etr Fi a this so e . s It is the called p in the Louvre ( g If, is possible, it was the last picture entirely painted by Giorgione that came from his hand, is likewise the best , exception beingmade inrespect ofthe Venus whichbelongs ’ Gio r io ne s to a category ofits own . The peace and calm which characterize all g works o f later date than the Giovanelli Tempest here mellow into a tender n o in gaiety full of sweetness and light . The artist is w possession of larger n powers and enriched experience . The field ofhis imagi ation is more populous and complex . Where once he w as content to scatter his little figures about - l n o w . with smal reference oneto another, hebeholds themintimatelyinter related Each individual figure in this group may be paralleled by others in earlier pictures but here they are mutually dependent alike in pictorial structure and in % e t . o human relation , with all this evidence fdevelopment in imaginative n grasp and technical skill, a direct conti uity in the elements employed can be traced between this painting and the Paris series by an unbroken chain from tu pic re to picture without a single gap or exception . Here are the same two is types of trees thickly clumped o f lightly indicated again st the sky. Here ll h the same kind of background vi age, and the same prominent farm ouse, f i with its long and short roo , its project ng veranda and its chimney patched against the end wall, which appeared in the Birth of Paris and in the

Northampton picture, but now seen from the opposite side . — Curiously enough here also reappears a round arched arcade under a slopin g - roof line like that depicted in one of the houses in the Fin din g of Paris . f ‘ t Again the ﬁgures are by pre erence seated on he ground, one in almost the ” same attitude as that of a lad in Paris given to nurse, and they are endowed l with a Simi ar but more developed grace . Here, too , is a shepherd in the back ff ground carrying, not a crook, but a long straight sta the like of which we

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G I ORG IONE

s As n o f o f have o often noted . a fi al and more subtle instance that love his fo r alongstraightlineinhiscompositions, whereofthesemanyrods areexamples , th e reader should observe the same effect h ere produced by the prolongation ’ o f o f l the line of the girl s flute down; the outline her legs , which are artificia ly - posed, obviously with this intent . The rod held by the cross legged youth in the Paris given to nurse is correspondingly but less artfully paralleled by i his left leg, and a rather sim lar device is exemplified in the piping musician ” o f and in one the standing Shepherds in the Birth of Paris . But enough of these wearisome details of identity which might be multiplied were such a e t ff ped ntry worth while . What has been here s down in this kind su ices to — prove that the group of twenty two pictures , to which I have been directing ’

i . the reader s attention, were, one and all, the work of a s ngle painter

5 7 ’ FOR clearness sake I here set down in their approximately chronological order the pictures which the foregoing investigation shows to have been the work of

Giorgione .

1 o f n f . The Birth Paris painted for Taddeo Contari i, whereo a large f ragment painted on canvas is in the Budapest Gallery .

2 o f fo r Be c caro . The Birth Paris painted , known from a copy

e . F by T niers which belonged to the late Mr Charles Loeser of lorence . F K . 3 . The inding of Paris a panel painting at Allington Castle, ent

n 4 . Paris given to Nurse, a panel pai ting at Allington Castle . A

pendant to No . 3 . f Paris and the Three Goddesses , a picture ormerly in the Andrea

Vendramin collection , known from a sketch copy in the MS . catalogue in the British Museum

6 A Landscape similarly recorded .

o f f 7 . Paris Exposed, a panel painting in the possession Pro essor A f U . . F o S . rank Jewitt Mather Princeton, New Jersey, ” fﬁz i 8 U F . . The Ordeal of Moses , panel painting in the , lorence 8 Uff 9 . The Judgment of Solomon . A pendant to No . , also in the izi .

1 0 . . Orpheus and Eurydice, a panel painting in the Bergamo Gallery

i n Incidents in the Apollo Legend, a panel painting in the Sem na o

della Salute, Venice . u 1 2 1 . and 3 . Two cassone panels in the Padua Gallery (doubtf l)

Leda and the Swan, a little panel painting in the Padua Gallery .

% . 1 A outh and a Girl A pendant to No . 4, also in the Padua Gallery . ” The Tempest, a painting on canvas in the Giovanelli collection at

Venice .

1 . 7 A Soldier and a Girl, a panel painting belonging to the Marquis

of Northampton . - f 1 8 . i o . The Madonna and Saints , altar p ece in the church S Liberale,

at Castelfranco .

1 i n . 9 . The Three Philosophers , a painting on canvas the Vienna Gallery ” 2 0 . Paris and the Three Goddesses , a painting represented by four

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