Giorgione Part 5

[60] See _Venetian Painting at the New Gallery_. 1895.

[61] Unless we are to suppose that Vasari mistook a copy for an original.

[62] Francesco Torbido, called "il Moro," born about 1490, and still living in 1545. Vasari states that he actually worked under Giorgione.

Signed portraits by him are in the Brera, at Munich, and Naples. Palma Vecchio also deserves serious consideration as possible author of the "Shepherd Boy."

[63] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 144.

[64] Morelli, ii. 212.

[65] See Appendix, p. 123.

[66] Quoted by Morelli, ii. 212, note.

[67] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 155.

[68] Crowe and Cavalcaselle also cite a portrait in the Casa Ajata at Crespano; as I have never seen this piece I cannot discuss it. It was apparently unknown to Morelli, nor is it mentioned by other critics.

[69] Morelli, ii. 205.

[70] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 128. Mr. Claude Phillips, in the _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 1884, p. 286, rightly admits Giorgione's authorship.

[71] This sketch is to be found in Van Dyck's note-book, now in possession of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth. It is here reproduced, failing an ill.u.s.tration of the original picture, which the authorities in Venice decline to have made. (A good reproduction has now (1903) been made by Anderson of Rome.)

[72] _Archivio Storico_, vi. 409.

[73] Ridolfi tells us Giorgione painted, among a long list of decorative pieces, "The Birth of Adonis," "Venus and Adonis embracing," and "Adonis killed by the Boar." It is possible he was alluding to these very _ca.s.sone_ panels.

[74] The other important additions made by Signor Venturi in his recent volume, _La Galleria Crespi_, are alluded to _in loco_, further on. I am delighted to find some of my own views antic.i.p.ated in a wholly independent fashion.

CHAPTER III

INTERMEDIATE SUMMARY

It is necessary for anyone who seeks to recover the missing or unidentified works of an artist like Giorgione, first to define his conception of the artist based upon a study of acknowledged materials.

The preceding chapter has been devoted to a survey of the best authenticated pictures, the evidence for the genuineness of which is, as we have seen, largely a matter of personal opinion. Nevertheless there is, on the whole, a unanimity of judgment sufficient to warrant our drawing several inferences as to the general character of Giorgione's work, and to attempt a chronological arrangement of the twenty-six pictures here accepted as genuine.

The first and most obvious fact then to be noted is the amazing variety of subjects handled by the master. Religious paintings, whether altar-pieces or easel pictures of a devotional character, are interspersed with mediaeval allegories, genre subjects, decorative _ca.s.sone_ panels, portraiture, and purely lyrical "Fantasiestucke,"

corresponding somewhat with the modern "Landscape with Figures." Truly an astonishing range! Giorgione, as we have seen, could not have been more than eighteen years in active practice, yet in that short time he gained successes in all these various fields. His many-sidedness shows him to have been a man of wide sympathies, whilst the astonishing rapidity of his development testifies to the precocity of his talent.

His versatility and his precocity are, in fact, the two most prominent characteristics to be borne in mind in judging his art, for much that appears at first sight incongruous, if not utterly irreconcilable, can be explained on this basis. For versatility and precocity in an artist are qualities invariably attended by unevenness of workmanship, as we see in the cases of Keats and Schubert, who were gifted with the lyrical temperament and powers of expression in poetry and music in corresponding measure to Giorgione in painting. It would show want of critical ac.u.men to expect from Keats the consistency of Milton, or that Schubert should keep the unvarying high level of Beethoven, and it is equally unreasonable to exact from Giorgione the uniform excellence which characterises t.i.tian. I do not propose at this point to work out the comparison between the painter, the musician, and the poet; this must be reserved until the final summing-up of Giorgione as artist, when we have examined all his work. But this point I do insist on, that from the very nature of things Giorgione's art is, and must be, uneven, that whilst at times it reaches sublime heights, at other times it attains to a level of only average excellence.

And so the criticism which condemns a picture claiming to be Giorgione's because "it is not _good_ enough for him," does not recognise the truth that for all that it may be _characteristic_, and, consequently, perfectly authentic. Modern criticism has been apt to condemn because it has expected too much; let us not blind our eyes to the weaknesses, even to the failures of great men, who, if they lose somewhat of the hero in our eyes, win our sympathy and our love the more for being human.

I have spoken of Giorgione's versatility, his precocity, and the natural inequality of his work. There is another characteristic which commonly exists when these qualities are found united, and that is Productiveness. Giorgione, according to all a.n.a.logy, must have produced a ma.s.s of work. It is idle to a.s.sert, as some modern writers have done, that at the utmost his easel pictures could have been but few, because most of his short life was devoted to painting frescoes, which have perished. It is true that Giorgione spent time and energy over fresco painting, and from the very publicity of such work as the frescoes on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, he came to be widely known in this direction, but it is infinitely probable that his output in other branches was enormous. The twenty-six pictures we have already accepted, plus the lost frescoes, cannot possibly represent the sum-total of his artistic activities, and to say that everything else has disappeared is, as I shall try to show, not correct. We know, moreover, from the Anonimo (who was almost Giorgione's contemporary) that many pictures existed in his day which cannot now be traced,[75] and if we add these and some of the others cited by Vasari and Ridolfi (without a.s.suming that every one was a genuine example), it goes to prove that Giorgione did paint a good number of easel pictures. But the evidence of the twenty-six themselves is conclusive. They ill.u.s.trate so many different phases, they stand sometimes so widely apart, that intermediate links are necessarily implied. Moreover, as Giorgione's influence on succeeding artists is allowed by all writers, a considerable number of his easel pictures must have been in circulation, from which these imitators drew inspiration, for he certainly never kept, as Bellini did, a body of a.s.sistants and pupils to hand on his teaching, and disseminate his style.

Productiveness must then have been a feature of his art, and as so few pictures have as yet come to be accepted as genuine, the majority must have perished or been lost to sight for the time. That much yet remains hidden away in private possession I am fully persuaded, especially in England and in Italy, and one day we may yet find the originals of the several old copies after Giorgione which I enumerate elsewhere.[76] In some cases I believe I have been fortunate enough to detect actually missing originals, and occasionally restore to Giorgione pieces that parade under t.i.tian's name. Much, however, yet remains to be done, and the research work now being systematically conducted in the Venetian archives by Dr. Gustav Ludwig and Signor Pietro Paoletti may yield rich results in the discovery of doc.u.ments relating to the master himself, which may help us to identify his productions, and possibly confirm some of the conjectures I venture to make in the following chapters.[77]

But before proceeding to examine other pictures which I am persuaded really emanate from Giorgione himself, let us attempt to place in approximate chronological order the twenty-six works already accepted as genuine, for, once their sequence is established, we shall the more readily detect the lacunae in the artist's evolution, and so the more easily recognise any missing transitional pieces which may yet exist.

The earliest stage in Giorgione's career is naturally marked by adherence to the teaching and example of his immediate predecessors.

However precocious he may have been, however free from academic training, however independent of the tradition of the schools, he nevertheless clearly betrays an artistic dependence, above all, on Giovanni Bellini. The "Christ bearing the Cross" and the two little pictures in the Uffizi are direct evidence of this, and these, therefore, must be placed quite early in his career. We should not be far wrong in dating them 1493-5. Carpaccio's influence is also apparent, as we have already noticed, and through this channel Giorgione's art connects with the more archaic style of Gentile Bellini, Giovanni's elder brother. Thus in him are united the quattrocentist tradition and the fresher ideals of the cinquecento, which found earliest expression in Giambellini's Allegories of about 1486-90. The poetic element in these works strongly appealed to Giorgione's sensitive nature, and we find him developing this side of his art in the Beaumont "Adoration,"

and the National Gallery "Epiphany," both of which are clearly early productions. But there is a gap of a few years between the Uffizi pictures and the London ones, for the latter are maturer in every way, and it is clear that the interval must have been spent in constant practice. Yet we cannot point with certainty to any of the other pictures in our list as standing midway in development, and here it is that a lacuna exists in the artist's career. Two or three years, possibly more, remain unaccounted for, just at a period, too, when the young artist would be most impressionable. I am inclined to think that he may have painted the "Birth of Paris" during these years, but we have only the copy of a part of the composition to go by, and the statement of the Anonimo that the picture was one of Giorgione's early works.

The "Adrastus and Hypsipyle" must also be a youthful production prior to 1500, and in the direction of portraiture we have the Berlin "Young Man," which, for reasons already given, must be placed quite early. It is not possible to a.s.sign exact dates to any of these works, all that can be said with any certainty is that they fall within the last decade of the fifteenth century, and ill.u.s.trate the rapid development of Giorgione's art up to his twenty-fourth year.

A further stage in his evolution is reached in the Castelfranco "Madonna," the first important undertaking of which we have some record.

Tradition connects the painting of this altar-piece with an event of the year 1504, the death of the young Matteo Costanzo, whose family, so it is said, commissioned Giorgione to paint a memorial altar-piece, and decorate the family chapel at Castelfranco with frescoes. Certain it is that the arms of the Costanzi appear in the picture, but the evidence which connects the commission with the death of Matteo seems to rest mainly on his alleged likeness to the S. Liberale in the picture, a theory, we may remark, which is quite consistent with Matteo being still alive. Considering the extraordinary rapidity of the artist's development, it would be more natural to place the execution of this work a year or two earlier than 1504, but, in any case, we may accept it as typical of Giorgione's style in the first years of the century. The "Judith" (at St. Petersburg), as we have already seen, probably immediately precedes it, so that we get two masterpieces approximately dated.

In the field of portraiture Giorgione must have made rapid strides from the very first. Vasari states that he painted the portraits of the great Consalvo Ferrante, and of one of his captains, on the occasion of their visit to the Doge Agostino Barberigo. Now this event presumably took place in 1500,[78] so that, at that early date, he seems already to have been a portrait painter of repute. Confirmatory evidence of this is furnished by the statement of Ridolfi, that Giorgione took the portrait of Agostino Barberigo himself.[79] Now the Doge died in 1500, so that if Giorgione really painted him, he could not have been more than twenty-three years of age at the time, an extraordinarily early age to have been honoured with so important a commission; this fact certainly presupposes successes with other patrons, whose portraits Giorgione must have taken during the years 1495-1500. I hope to be able to identify two or three of these, but for the moment we may note that by 1500 Giorgione was a recognised master of portraiture. The only picture on our list likely to date from the period 1500-1504 is the "Knight of Malta," the "Young Man" (at Buda-Pesth) being later in execution.[80]

From 1504 on, the rapid rate of progress is more than fully maintained.

Only six years remain of the artist's short life, yet in that time he rose to full power, and antic.i.p.ated the splendid achievements of t.i.tian's maturity some forty years later. First in order, probably, come the "Venus" (Dresden) and the "Concert" (Pitti), both showing originality of conception and mastery of handling. The date of the frescoes on the Fondaco de' Tedeschi is known to be 1507-8,[81] but, as nothing remains but a few patches of colour in one spot high up over the Grand Ca.n.a.l, we have no visible clue to guide us in our estimate of their artistic worth. Vasari's description, and Zanetti's engraving of a few fragments (done in 1760, when the frescoes were already in decay), go to prove that Giorgione at this period studied the antique, "commingling statuesque cla.s.sicism and the flesh and blood of real life."[82]

At this period it is most probable we must place the "Judgment of Solomon" (at Kingston Lacy), possibly, as I have already pointed out, the very work commissioned by the State for the audience chamber of the Council, on which, as we know from doc.u.ments, Giorgione was engaged in 1507 and 1508. It was never finished, and the altogether exceptional character of the work places it outside the regular course of the artist's development. It was an ambitious venture in an unwonted direction, and is naturally marked and marred by unsatisfactory features. Giorgione's real powers are shown by the "Pastoral Symphony"

(in the Louvre), and the "Portrait of the Young Man" (at Buda-Pesth), productions dating from the later years 1508-10. The "Three Ages" (in the Pitti) may also be included, and if Giorgione conceived and even partly executed the "Storm calmed by S. Mark" (Venice Academy), this also must be numbered among his last works.

Morelli states: "It was only in the last six years of his short life (from about 1505-11) that Giorgione's power and greatness became fully developed."[83] I think this is true in the sense that Giorgione was ever steadily advancing towards a fuller and riper understanding of the world, that his art was expanding into a magnificence which found expression in larger forms and richer colour, that he was acquiring greater freedom of touch, and more perfect command of the technical resources of his art. But sufficient stress is not laid, I think, upon the masterly achievement of the earlier times; the tendency is to refer too much to later years, and not recognise sufficiently the prodigious precocity before 1500. One is tempted at times to question the accuracy of Vasari's statement that Giorgione died in his thirty-fourth year, which throws his birth back only to 1477. Some modern writers disregard this statement altogether, and place his birth "before 1477."[84] Be this as it may, it does not alter the fact that by 1500 Giorgione had already attained in portraiture to the highest honours, and in this sphere, I believe, he won his earliest successes. My object in the following chapter will be to endeavour to point out some of the very portraits, as yet unidentified, which I am persuaded were produced by Giorgione chiefly in these earlier years, and thus partly to fill some of the lacunae we have found in tracing his artistic evolution.

NOTES:

[75] A list of these is given at p. 138.

[76] _Vide_ List of Works, pp. 124-137.

[77] The results of these archivistic researches are being published in the _Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft_.

[78] For the evidence, see _Magazine of Art_, April 1893.

[79] Meravig, i. 126.

[80] Vasari saw Giorgione's portrait of the succeeding Doge Leonardo Loredano (1501-1521).

[81] See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 141.

[82] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, _ibid_.

[83] ii. 213. We now know that he died in 1510.

[84] Crowe and Cavalcaselle, ii. 119. Bode: _Cicerone_.

CHAPTER IV