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The so-called Concert of the Pitti Palace, which depicts a young Augustinian monk as he plays on a keyed instrument, having on one side of him a youthful cavalier in a plumed hat, on the other a bareheaded clerk holding a bass-viol, was, until Morelli arose, almost universally looked upon as one of the most typical Giorgiones.
As a matter of fact, I find myself when in the Uffizi continually drawn to revisit these walls. The chief treasures are the Titians, the Giorgiones, the Mantegnas, the Carpaccio, and the Bellini allegory. These alone would make the Uffizi a Mecca of connoisseurs.
Berenson, in his Venetian Painters, includes two other pictures in an extremely exclusive list of seventeen genuine Giorgiones. The question whether or no we are to accept the former of these pictures has its origin in a curious contradiction of Vasari, who, in the first edition of his Lives , names Giorgione as the painter, whilst in the second , he assigns the authorship to Titian.
The result of this critic's heavy labours is to reduce the certain Giorgiones to thirteen, among which is the S. Rocco altar-piece. With great daring he goes on to say who painted all the others: Sebastian del Piombo this, Andrea Schiavone that, Romanino another, Titian another, and so forth.
The Bellinis could be hung in Rooms I and VI without violence; the Giorgiones and Titians and Tintorettos would conflict. Bellini's simplicity allies him to Giotto traditions; but there was no simplicity about Giorgione, Titian, and Tintoretto. They were sophisticated, and the two last were also the painters of a wealthy and commanding Republic.
In default of Raphaels, Giorgiones, and Titians, we should be pleased to hang upon our walls works such as those. But towering above the other artists of Holland, great and small, was one Dutchman, Rembrandt, who holds his own with the greatest of the world. He was born in 1606, the son of a miller at Leyden, who gave him the best teaching there to be had.
"Very interesting," said Lothair, "but what I want are pearls. That necklace which you have shown me is like the necklace of a doll. I want pearls, such as you see them in Italian pictures Titians and Giorgiones such as a Queen of Cyprus would wear. I want ropes of pearls." "Ah!" said Mr. Ruby, "I know what your lordship means. Lady Bideford had something of that kind.
According to Vasari, Giorgione, like his master Bellini, painted the Doge Leonardo Loredan, but the picture, where is it? And where are others mentioned by Vasari and Ridolfi? So fervid a lover of nature and his art must have painted much; yet there is but little left now. Can there be discoveries of Giorgiones still to be made?
Were the repaints removed, I think all doubts as to the authorship would be set at rest, and the "Nymph and Satyr" would take its place among the slighter and more summary productions of Giorgione's brush. Prado Gallery, Madrid Only one sacred subject figures in the additions made by Morelli to the list of genuine Giorgiones.
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?
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