At last, with final mastery of all the technical secrets of his
art, and with somewhat more than "a spark of the divine fire" to his
share, comes Giorgione. He is the inventor of genre, of those easily
movable pictures which serve neither for uses of devotion, nor of
allegorical or historic teaching--little groups of real men and women,
amid congruous furniture or landscape--morsels of actual life,
conversation or music or play, refined upon or idealised, till they come
to seem like glimpses of life from afar. 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.
Pages:
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195