It is true that Giorgione spent time and energy over fresco
painting, and from the very publicity of such work as the frescoes on
the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, he came to be widely known in this direction,
but it is infinitely probable that his output in other branches was
enormous. The twenty-six pictures we have already accepted, plus the
lost frescoes, cannot possibly represent the sum-total of his artistic
activities, and to say that everything else has disappeared is, as I
shall try to show, not correct. We know, moreover, from the Anonimo (who
was almost Giorgione's contemporary) that many pictures existed in his
day which cannot now be traced,[75] and if we add these and some of the
others cited by Vasari and Ridolfi (without assuming that every one was
a genuine example), it goes to prove that Giorgione did paint a good
number of easel pictures. But the evidence of the twenty-six themselves
is conclusive. They illustrate so many different phases, they stand
sometimes so widely apart, that intermediate links are necessarily
implied. Moreover, as Giorgione's influence on succeeding artists is
allowed by all writers, a considerable number of his easel pictures must
have been in circulation, from which these imitators drew inspiration,
for he certainly never kept, as Bellini did, a body of assistants and
pupils to hand on his teaching, and disseminate his style.
Productiveness must then have been a feature of his art, and as so few
pictures have as yet come to be accepted as genuine, the majority must
have perished or been lost to sight for the time.
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