[10] 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 is now proved false by the document quoted in the Appendix.

CHAPTER II

GENERALLY ACCEPTED WORKS

Such, then, very briefly, are the facts of Giorgione’s life recorded by the older biographers, or known by contemporary documents.  Now let us turn to his artistic remains, the disjecta membra, out of which we may reconstruct something of the man himself; for, to those who can interpret it aright, a man’s work is his best autobiography.

This is especially true in the case of an artist of Giorgione’s temperament, for his expression is so peculiarly personal, so highly charged with individuality, that every product of mental activity becomes a revelation of the man himself.  People like Giorgione must express themselves in certain ways, and these ways are therefore characteristic.  Some people regard a work of art as something external; a great artist, they say, can vary his productions at will, he can paint in any style he chooses.  But the exact contrary is the truth.  The greater the artist, the less he can divest himself of his own personality; his work may vary in degree of excellence, but not in kind.  The real reason, therefore, why it is impossible for certain pictures to be by Giorgione is, not that they are not good enough for him, but that they are not characteristic.  I insist on this point, because in the matter of genuineness the touchstone of authenticity is so often to be looked for in an answer to the question:  Is this or that characteristic?  The personal equation is the all-important factor to be recognised; it is the connecting link which often unites apparently diverse phenomena, and explains what would otherwise appear to be irreconcilable.

There is an intimate relation then between the artist and his work, and, rightly interpreted, the latter can tell us much about the former.

Let us turn to Giorgione’s work.  Here we are brought face to face with an initial difficulty, the great difficulty, in fact, which has stood so much in the way of a more comprehensive understanding of the master, I mean, that scarcely anything of his work is authenticated.  Three pictures alone have never been called in question by contending critics; outside this inner ring is more or less debatable ground, and on this wider arena the battle has raged until scarcely a shred of the painter’s work has emerged unscathed.  The result has been to reduce the figure of Giorgione to a shadowy myth, whose very existence, at the present rate at which negative criticism progresses, will assuredly be called in question.

If Bacon wrote Shakespeare, then Giorgione can be divided up between a dozen Venetian artists, who “painted Giorgione.”  Fortunately three pictures survive which refuse to be fitted in anywhere else except under “Giorgione.”  This is the irreducible minimum, [Greek:  o anankaiotatos] Giorgione, with which we must start.