Schubert suffered
privations and poverty, and his song was wrung from him alike at moments
of inspiration and of necessity. But Giorgione is all aglow with natural
energy; he suffered no restraints, nor is his art forced or morbid.
Confine his spirit, check the play of his fancy, set him a task
prescribed by convention or hampered by conditions, and you get proof of
the fretfulness, the impatience of restraint which the artist felt. The
"Judgment of Solomon" and "The Adulteress before Christ," the only two
"set" pieces he ever attempted, eloquently show how he fell short when
struggling athwart his genius. For to register a fact was utterly
foreign to his nature; he records an impression, frankly surrendering
his spirit to the sense of joy and beauty. He is not seldom incoherent,
and may even grow careless, but in power of imagination and exuberance
of fancy he is always supreme.
In one respect, however, Giorgione shows himself a greater than Schubert
or Keats. He has a profounder insight into human nature in its varying
aspects than either the musician or the poet. He is less a visionary,
because his experience of men and things is greater than theirs; his
outlook is wider, he is less self-centred. This power of grasping
objective truth naturally shows itself most readily in the portraits he
painted, and it was due to the force of circumstances, as I believe,
that this faculty was trained and developed.
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