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The conception is typically Giorgione's own, the thoughtful, dreamy look, the turn of the head, the refinement and distinction of this wonderful figure alike proclaim him; whilst in the workmanship the quilted satin is exactly paralleled by the painting of the dress in the Berlin and Buda-Pesth portraits.
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. In the field of portraiture Giorgione must have made rapid strides from the very first.
Although bearing Giorgione's name by tradition, modern critics have passed it by presumably on the ground that "it is not good enough," that fatal argument which has thrown dust in the eyes of the learned.
There are various pictures in the Louvre, the National Gallery, and the Pinacothek at Munich, signed with Giorgione's name, but Mrs. Jameson declares they are not his, "because they do not speak to your soul with that mild, beseeching look of pity," Possibly we should make allowance for Mrs. Jameson's warm praise other women talked like that when Giorgione was alive.
The name "Giorgione" signifies "Big George." But it seems to have been also his father's name. This visitation claimed no less than 20,000 victims. See Gronau, op. cit. Tradition has been exceptionally busy over Giorgione's affairs. The story goes that he died of grief at being betrayed by his friend and pupil, Morto da Feltre, who had robbed him of his mistress.
This morning I had been looking at Giorgione's picture of the cruel-eyed woman, said to be a likeness of Lucrezia Borgia. I had stood long alone before it, fascinated by the terrible reality of that cunning, relentless face, till I felt a strange poisoned sensation, as if I had long been inhaling a fatal odour, and was just beginning to be conscious of its effects.
The general pose is most like that of the Borghese "Lady." The parapet, the wavy hair, the high cranium are all so many outward and visible signs of Giorgione's spirit, whilst none but he could have created such magnificent contrasts of colour, such effects of light and shade. This is indeed Giorgione, the great master, the magician who holds us all fascinated by his wondrous spell.
It is not possible to assign 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 illustrate 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.
One need but compare it with Titian's representations of the same subject, and still more with Palma's versions at Dresden and Cambridge, or with Cariani's "Venus" at Hampton Court, to see the classic purity of form, the ideal loveliness of Giorgione's goddess. It is no mere accident that she alone is sleeping, whilst they solicit attention.
The young man he knew could not do what was needed, and certainly would get no hearing a peasant of the Abruzzo border, who looked like a figure of Giorgione's, and would probably be arrested as an anarchist if he were to endeavour to enter any great house or public office. But to go to Rome himself! To revisit the desecrated city!
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