The Venetians were a proud and successful people, wealthier by virtue of their great sea-trade than the citizens of Florence or of any other town in Italy; their foremost men lived in great high-roomed palaces, richly furnished, and decorated with pictures of a sumptuous pageantry.  But the Venetians were not merely a luxurious people.  The poetry of the lagoons, and the glory of the sunset skies, imparted to their lives the wealth of a rare romance.  Even in Venice to-day, now that the steamers have spoilt the peace of the canals and the old orange-winged sailing-boats no longer crowd against the quays, the dreamy atmosphere of the city retains its spell.

Few artists ever felt and expressed this atmosphere better than Giorgione, the painter of the first of our Venetian pictures.  He was one of the great artists of the Renaissance who died young, ten years before Raphael, but their greatness is scarcely comparable.  Like Raphael, Giorgione was precocious, but unlike him he painted in a style of his own that from the very beginning owed little to any one else.  He saw beauty in his own way, and was not impelled to see it differently by coming into contact with other artists, however great.  Unlike Raphael, he was not a great master of the art of composition.  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 ancient Greeks called this perfect time the ‘Golden Age’ of the world.  In many ways their idea of it tallies with the description of the Garden of Eden, and they were always contrasting with it the ’Iron Age’ in which they thought they lived, as the Hebrews contrasted the life of Adam and Eve in the garden with their own.  As the fancy flashed across Giorgione’s mind, perchance he saw some just king of whom his subjects felt no fear seated upon a throne like this.  A dreamy youth plays soft music to him, and another hands him flowers and fruit.  Books lie strewn upon the steps, and a child stands in a reverent attitude before him.  Wild and domestic animals live together in harmony; the ground is carpeted with flowers; all is peaceful.  Such a subject suited the temperament of Giorgione, and he painted it in the romantic mood in which it was conceived.  Nothing could be further from everyday life than this little scene.  It has the unlaboured look that suits such an improvised subject.  Of course no one knows for certain that this is a picture of the Golden Age, and you may make up any story you like about it for yourselves.  That is one of the charms of the picture.  It has been said that the throned one is celebrating his birthday, and that his little heir is reciting him a birthday ode accompanied by music.  You may believe this if you like, but how do you then account for the leopard and the peacock living in such harmony together?