Giorgione | Page 6

but a
parallel presentation to the written poem of Statius.
Technically, the workmanship points to an earlier period than the
Castelfranco Madonna, and there is an exuberance of fancy which
points to a youthful origin. The figures are of slight and graceful build,
the composition easy and unstudied, with a tendency to adopt a
triangular arrangement in the grouping, the apex being formed by the

storm scene, to which the eye thus naturally reverts. The figures and the
landscape are brought into close relation by this subtle scheme, and the
picture becomes, not figures with landscape background, but landscape
with figures.
The reproduction unduly exaggerates the contrasts of light and shade,
and conveys little of the mellowness and richness of atmospheric effect
which characterise the original. Unlike the brilliance of colouring in the
Castelfranco picture, dark reds, browns, and greens here give a sombre
tone which is accentuated by the dullness of surface due to old
varnishes.
[Illustration: Hanfstängl photo. Vienna Gallery
AENEAS, EVANDER, AND PALLAS]
"The Three Philosophers," or "The Chaldean Sages," as the picture at
Vienna has long been strangely named, shows the artist again treating a
classical story in his own fantastic way. Virgil has enshrined in verse
the legend of the arrival of the Trojan Aeneas in Italy,[17] and
Giorgione depicts the moment when Evander, the aged seer-king, and
his son Pallas point out to the wanderer the site of the future Capitol.
Again we find the same poetical presentation, not representation, of a
legendary subject, again the same feeling for the beauties of nature.
How Giorgione has revelled in the glories of the setting sun, the long
shadows of the evening twilight, the tall-stemmed trees, the
moss-grown rock! The figures are but a pretext, we feel, for an idyllic
scene, where the story is subordinated to the expression of sensuous
charm.
This work was seen by the Anonimo in 1525, in the house of Taddeo
Contarini at Venice. It was then believed to have been completed by
Sebastiano del Piombo, Giorgione's pupil. If so,--and there is no valid
reason to doubt the statement,--Giorgione left unfinished a picture on
which he was at work some years before his death, for the style clearly
indicates that the artist had not yet reached the maturity of his later
period. The figures still recall those of Bellini, the modelling is close
and careful, the forms compact, and reminiscent of the quattrocento. It

is noticeable that the type of the Pallas is identical with that of S. John
Baptist in Sebastiano's early altar-piece in S. Giovanni Crisostomo at
Venice, but it would be unwise to dramatise on the share (if any) which
the pupil had in completing the work of his master. The credit of
invention must indubitably rest with Giorgione, but the damage which
the picture has sustained through neglect and repainting in years gone
by, renders certainty of discrimination between the two hands a matter
of impossibility.
The colouring is rich and varied; the orange horizon, the distant blue
hill, and the pale, clear evening light, with violet-tinted clouds, give a
wonderful depth behind the dark tree-trunks. The effect of the delicate
leaves and feathery trees at the edge of the rock, relieved against the
pale sky, is superb. A spirit of solemnity broods over the scene, fit
feeling at so eventful a moment in the history of the past.
The composition, which looks so unstudied, is really arranged on the
usual triangular basis. The group of figures on the right is balanced on
the left by the great rock--the future Capitol--(which is thus brought
prominently into notice), and the landscape background again forms the
apex. The added depth and feeling for space shows how Giorgione had
learnt to compose in three dimensions, the technical advance over the
"Adrastus and Hypsipyle" indicating a period subsequent to that picture,
though probably anterior to the Castelfranco altar-piece.
* * * * *
We have now taken the three universally accepted Giorgiones; how are
we to proceed in our investigations? The simplest course will be to take
the pictures acknowledged by those modern writers who have devoted
most study to the question, and examine them in the light of the results
to which we have attained. Those writers are Crowe and Cavalcaselle,
who published their account of Giorgione in 1871, and Morelli, who
wrote in 1877. Now it is notorious that the results at which these critics
arrived are often widely divergent, but a great deal too much has been
made of the differences and not enough of the points of agreement. As
a matter of fact, Morelli only questions three of the thirteen Giorgiones
accepted definitely by Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Leaving these three

aside for the moment, we may take the remaining ten (three of which
we have already examined), and after deducting