The first and most obvious fact then to be noted is the amazing variety of subjects handled by the master.  Religious paintings, whether altar-pieces or easel pictures of a devotional character, are interspersed with mediaeval allegories, genre subjects, decorative cassone panels, portraiture, and purely lyrical “Fantasiestuecke,” corresponding somewhat with the modern “Landscape with Figures.”  Truly an astonishing range!  Giorgione, as we have seen, could not have been more than eighteen years in active practice, yet in that short time he gained successes in all these various fields.  His many-sidedness shows him to have been a man of wide sympathies, whilst the astonishing rapidity of his development testifies to the precocity of his talent.  His versatility and his precocity are, in fact, the two most prominent characteristics to be borne in mind in judging his art, for much that appears at first sight incongruous, if not utterly irreconcilable, can be explained on this basis.  For versatility and precocity in an artist are qualities invariably attended by unevenness of workmanship, as we see in the cases of Keats and Schubert, who were gifted with the lyrical temperament and powers of expression in poetry and music in corresponding measure to Giorgione in painting.  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.  I do not propose at this point to work out the comparison between the painter, the musician, and the poet; this must be reserved until the final summing-up of Giorgione as artist, when we have examined all his work.  But this point I do insist on, that from the very nature of things Giorgione’s art is, and must be, uneven, that whilst at times it reaches sublime heights, at other times it attains to a level of only average excellence.

And so the criticism which condemns a picture claiming to be Giorgione’s because “it is not good enough for him,” does not recognise the truth that for all that it may be characteristic, and, consequently, perfectly authentic.  Modern criticism has been apt to condemn because it has expected too much; let us not blind our eyes to the weaknesses, even to the failures of great men, who, if they lose somewhat of the hero in our eyes, win our sympathy and our love the more for being human.

I have spoken of Giorgione’s versatility, his precocity, and the natural inequality of his work.  There is another characteristic which commonly exists when these qualities are found united, and that is Productiveness.  Giorgione, according to all analogy, must have produced a mass of work.  It is idle to assert, as some modern writers have done, that at the utmost his easel pictures could have been but few, because most of his short life was devoted to painting frescoes, which have perished.  It is