Something like this seems to me to be the vraie verite about Giorgione,
if I may adopt a serviceable expression, by which the French recognise
those more liberal and durable impressions which, in respect of any
really considerable person or subject, anything that has at all
intricately occupied men's attention, lie beyond, and must supplement,
the narrower range of the strictly ascertained facts about it. In this,
Giorgione is but an illustration of a valuable general caution we may
abide by in all criticism. As regards Giorgione himself, we have indeed
to take note of all those negations and exceptions, by which, at first
sight, a "new Vasari" seems merely to have confused our apprehension of
a delightful object, to have explained away out of our inheritance from
past time what seemed of high value there. Yet it is not with a full
understanding even of those exceptions that one can leave off just at
this point. Properly qualified, such exceptions are but a salt of
genuineness in our knowledge; and beyond all those strictly ascertained
facts, we must take note of that indirect influence by which one like
Giorgione, for instance, enlarges his permanent efficacy and really
makes himself felt in our culture.
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