This work was seen by the Anonimo in 1525, in the house of Taddeo
Contarini at Venice. It was then believed to have been completed by
Sebastiano del Piombo, Giorgione's pupil. If so,--and there is no valid
reason to doubt the statement,--Giorgione left unfinished a picture on
which he was at work some years before his death, for the style clearly
indicates that the artist had not yet reached the maturity of his later
period. The figures still recall those of Bellini, the modelling is
close and careful, the forms compact, and reminiscent of the
quattrocento. It is noticeable that the type of the Pallas is identical
with that of S. John Baptist in Sebastiano's early altar-piece in S.
Giovanni Crisostomo at Venice, but it would be unwise to dramatise on
the share (if any) which the pupil had in completing the work of his
master. The credit of invention must indubitably rest with Giorgione,
but the damage which the picture has sustained through neglect and
repainting in years gone by, renders certainty of discrimination between
the two hands a matter of impossibility.
The colouring is rich and varied; the orange horizon, the distant blue
hill, and the pale, clear evening light, with violet-tinted clouds, give
a wonderful depth behind the dark tree-trunks. The effect of the
delicate leaves and feathery trees at the edge of the rock, relieved
against the pale sky, is superb. A spirit of solemnity broods over the
scene, fit feeling at so eventful a moment in the history of the past.
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