It is an
astonishing thing for one so young to have done, explicable
psychologically on the existence of a lively sympathy between the great
lady and the poet-painter. Had we other portraits of the fair sex by
Giorgione, I venture to think we should find in them his reading of the
human soul even more plainly evidenced than in the male portraits we
actually possess.[140] For it is clear that the artist was
"impressionable," and he would have given us more sympathetic
interpretations of the fair sex than those which Titian has left us. The
so-called "Portrait of the Physician Parma" (at Vienna) is another
instance of Giorgione's grasp of character, the virility and suppressed
energy being admirably seized, the conception approaching more nearly to
Titian's in its essential dignity than is usually the case with
Giorgione's portraits. It is a matter of more regret, therefore, that
the likenesses of the Doges Agostino Barberigo and Leonardo Loredano are
missing, for in them we might have had specimens of work comparable to
the Caterina Cornaro, which, in my opinion at all events, is Giorgione's
masterpiece of portraiture.
I have given reasons elsewhere for dating this portrait at latest 1500.
It is probably anterior by a few years to the close of the century. This
deduction, if correct, has far-reaching consequences: it becomes
actually the first _modern_ portrait ever painted, for it is the
earliest instance of a portrait instinct with the newer life of the
Renaissance.
Pages:
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139