Giorgione's "Caterina Cornaro," therefore, becomes the first
masterpiece of the earlier Renaissance, and proclaims a revolution in
the history of portraiture. In Venice itself we have only to look at the
contemporary portraits by Alvise Vivarini and Gentile Bellini, and at
the slightly earlier busts by Antonello da Messina, to see what a world
of difference in feeling and interpretation there is between them and
Giorgione's portraits. What a splendid array of artistic triumphs must
have sprung up around this masterpiece! The Cobham portrait and the
National Gallery "Poet" are alone left us in much of their pristine
splendour, but what of the lost portraits of the great Consalvo and of
the Doge Agostino Barberigo, both of which must date from the year 1500?
Giorgione is then the Herald of the Renaissance, and never did genius
arise in more fitting season. It was the right psychological moment for
such a man, and Giorgione "painted pictures so perfectly in touch with
the ripened spirit of the Renaissance that they met with the success
which those things only find that at the same moment wake us to the
full sense of a need and satisfy it."[143] This is the secret of his
overwhelming influence on succeeding painters in Venice,--not, indeed,
on his direct pupil Sebastiano del Piombo, and on his friend and
associate Titian (who may fairly be called his pupil), but on such
different natures as Lotto, Palma, Bonifazio, Bordone, Pordenone,
Cariani, Romanino, Dosso Dossi, and a host of smaller men.
Pages:
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141