Claude Phillips,[66] and it was
this general reminiscence, more than points of detail in an admittedly
imperfect work that seemingly induced Morelli to suggest Titian's name
as possible author of the "Concert." Nevertheless, I cannot allow this
plausible comparison to outweigh other and more vital considerations.
The subtlety of the composition, the bold sweep of diagonal lines, the
way the figure of the young monk is "built up" on a triangular design,
the contrasts of black and white, are essentially Giorgione's own. So,
too, is the spirit of the scene, so telling in its movement, gesture,
and expression. Surely it is needless to translate all that is most
characteristic of Giorgione in his most personal expression into a
"Giorgionesque" mood of Titian. No, let us admit that Titian owed much
to his friend and master (more perhaps than we yet know), but let us not
needlessly deprive Giorgione of what is, in my opinion at least, the
great creation of his maturer years, the Pitti "Concert." I am inclined
to place it about 1506-7, and to regard it as the earliest and finest
expression in Venetian art of that kind of genre painting of which we
have already studied another, though later example, "The Three Ages" (in
the Pitti). The second work where Crowe and Cavalcaselle hold a
different view from Morelli is a "Portrait of a Man" in the Gallery of
Rovigo (No. 11). The former writers declare that it, "perhaps more than
any other, approximates to the true style of Giorgione.
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