Certainly here it
is awkwardly introduced, obviously to bring the figure into direct
relation with the others; but Giorgione is by no means always supreme
master of natural expression, as the hands in the "Adrastus and
Hypsipyle" and Vienna pictures clearly show.
Here, for the first time, we meet Giorgione in those studies of human
nature which are commonly called "conversation pieces," or
"concerts"--natural groups of generally three people knit together by
some common bond, which is usually music in one form or another. It is
not the idyll of the "Pastoral Symphony," but akin to it as an
expression of some exquisite moment of thought or feeling, an ideal
instant "in which, arrested thus, we seem to be spectators of all the
fulness of existence, and which is like some consummate extract or
quintessence of life."[55] No one before Giorgione's time had painted
such ideas, such poems without articulated story; and to have reached
this stage of development presupposes a familiarity with set subjects
such as a classic myth or mediaeval romance would offer for treatment.
And so this "Three Ages" dates from his later years.
[Illustration: _Anderson photo. Pitti Gallery, Florence_
NYMPH AND SATYR]
Another picture in the Pitti was also recognised by Morelli as
Giorgione's work--"The Nymph pursued by a Satyr." Modern criticism seems
undecided on the justice of this view, some writers inclining to the
belief that this is a Giorgionesque production of Dosso Dossi, others
preserving a discreet silence, or making frank avowal of their inability
to decide.
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