Here, for the first time, we meet Giorgione in those studies of human nature which are commonly called “conversation pieces,” or “concerts”—­natural groups of generally three people knit together by some common bond, which is usually music in one form or another.  It is not the idyll of the “Pastoral Symphony,” but akin to it as an expression of some exquisite moment of thought or feeling, an ideal instant “in which, arrested thus, we seem to be spectators of all the fulness of existence, and which is like some consummate extract or quintessence of life."[55] No one before Giorgione’s time had painted such ideas, such poems without articulated story; and to have reached this stage of development presupposes a familiarity with set subjects such as a classic myth or mediaeval romance would offer for treatment.  And so this “Three Ages” dates from his later years.

[Illustration:  Anderson photo.  Pitti Gallery, Florence

NYMPH AND SATYR]

Another picture in the Pitti was also recognised by Morelli as Giorgione’s work—­“The Nymph pursued by a Satyr.”  Modern criticism seems undecided on the justice of this view, some writers inclining to the belief that this is a Giorgionesque production of Dosso Dossi, others preserving a discreet silence, or making frank avowal of their inability to decide.  Nevertheless, I venture to agree with Morelli that “we have all the characteristics of an early (?) work of Giorgione—­the type of the nymph with the low forehead, the charming arrangement of the hair upon the temples, the eyes placed near together, and the hand with tapering fingers."[56] The oval of the face recalls the “Knight of Malta,” the high cranium and treatment of the hair such as we find in the Dresden “Venus” and elsewhere.  The delicacy of modelling, the beauty of the features are far beyond Dosso’s powers, who, brilliant artist as he sometimes was, was of much coarser fibre than the painter of these figures.  The difference of calibre between the two is well illustrated by comparing Giorgione’s “Satyr” with Dosso’s frankly vulgar “Buffone” in the Modena Gallery, or with those uncouth productions, also in the Pitti, the “S.  John Baptist” and the “Bambocciate."[57] 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.

[Illustration:  Laurent photo.  Prado Gallery, Madrid

MADONNA AND SAINTS]

Only one sacred subject figures in the additions made by Morelli to the list of genuine Giorgiones.  This is the small altar-piece at Madrid, with Madonna seated between S. Francis and S. Roch.  Traditionally accredited to Pordenone, it has now received official recognition as a masterpiece of Giorgione, an attribution that, so far as I am aware, no one has seriously contested.[58] And, indeed, it is hard to conceive wherein any objection