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It would show want of critical acumen 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 Titian.
It is difficult, indeed, to imagine that this masterpiece so eminently a work of the Cinquecento, and one, too, in which the master of Cadore rose superior to all influences, even to that of Giorgione could have been painted in 1508, that is some two years before Bellini's Baptism of Christ in S. Corona, and in all probability before the Three Philosophers of Giorgione himself.
He now, therefore, devoted himself to this purpose, and in a short time so closely imitated Giorgione that his pictures were sometimes taken for those of this master, as will be related below.
It is related that Giorgione, at the time when Andrea Verrocchio was making his bronze horse, fell into an argument with certain sculptors, who maintained, since sculpture showed various attitudes and aspects in one single figure to one walking round it, that for this reason it surpassed painting, which only showed one side of a figure.
There is no room, moreover, for such a mythical compromise as that which is proposed by the catalogue, "It stands midway in style between Giorgione and Titian in his Giorgionesque phase."
Those spaces of more cunningly blent colour, obediently filling their places, hitherto, in a mere architectural scheme, Giorgione detaches from the wall; he frames them by the hands of some skilful carver, so that people may move them readily and take with them where they go, like a poem in manuscript, or a musical instrument, to be used, at will, as a means of self-education, stimulus or solace, coming like an animated presence, into one's cabinet, to enrich the air as with some choice aroma, and, like persons, live with us, for a day or a lifetime.
In the little picture before us the grouping of the figures is not what may be called inevitable, like that in the 'Knight's Dream. It seems as though one day when Giorgione was musing on the beauties of the world, and the blemishes of life, even life in Venice, he thought of some far-off time beyond the dawn of history when all men lived in peace.
The latter saw Gian Bellini in his age, and said of him, when foolish mockers had risen up to scout at the old man, and his art now become classic, 'He is very old, but he is still the best of our painters. Gian Bellini had illustrious pupils, including in their number Titian and Giorgione.
Into all his work Giorgione infused his own soul and do you know what the power to do that is? It is genius. To be able to make a statue is little, but to breathe into its nostrils the breath of life ah! that is something else!
Certainly here it is awkwardly introduced, obviously to bring the figure into direct relation with the others; but Giorgione is by no means always supreme master of natural expression, as the hands in the "Adrastus and Hypsipyle" and Vienna pictures clearly show.
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