Particularly to be noticed, however, is the parapet on
which the fingers of one hand are visible, and the mysterious letters
VV.[35] Allusion has already been made to the growing practice in
Venetian art of introducing the hand as a significant feature in
portrait painting, and here we get the earliest indications of this
tendency in Giorgione; for this portrait certainly ante-dates the
"Knight of Malta." It would seem to have been painted quite early in the
last decade of the fifteenth century, when Bellini's art would still be
the predominant influence over the young artist.
It is but a step onward to the next portrait, that of a young man, in
the Gallery at Buda-Pesth, but the supreme distinction which marks this
wonderful head stamps it as a masterpiece of portraiture. Venetian art
has nothing finer to show, whether for its interpretative qualities, or
for the subtlety of its execution. Truly Giorgione has here foreshadowed
Velasquez, whose silveriness of tone is curiously anticipated; yet the
true Giorgionesque quality of magic is felt in a way that the impersonal
Spaniard never realised. Only those who have seen the original can know
of the wonderful atmospheric background, with sky, clouds, and hill-tops
just visible. The reproduction, alas! gives no hint of all this. Nor can
one appreciate the superb painting of the black quilted dress, with its
gold braid, or of the shining black hair, confined in a brown net.
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