It has been well said
that almost literally the chief colour on Giorgione's palette was
sunlight.[146] His masterly treatment of light and shadow, in which he
was scarcely Leonardo's inferior, enabled him to make use of rich and
full-bodied colours, which are never gaudy, as sometimes with Bonifazio,
or pretty, as with Catena and lesser artists. Nor is he decorative in
the way that Veronese excels, or lurid like Tintoretto. Compared with
Titian it is as though his colour-chord sounded in seven sharps, whilst
the former strikes the key of C natural. A full rich green frequently
occurs, as in the Castelfranco "Madonna" and the Louvre picture, and a
deep crimson, contrasting with pure white drapery, or with golden
flesh-tints, is also characteristic. In the painting of the nude he
gives us real flesh and blood; his "Venus" has not the supernatural
radiance that Correggio can give his ethereal beings (Giorgione, by the
way, never painted an angel, so far as we know), but she glows with
actual life, the blood is pulsing through the veins, she is very real.
And in this connection we may notice the extraordinary skill with which
Giorgione conveys a sense of texture; his painting of rich brocades, and
more especially quilted stuffs and satiny folds, cannot be surpassed
even by a Terburg.
The quality of line in his work makes itself felt in many ways. Beauty
of contour and unbroken continuity of curve is obtained sometimes by
sacrificing literal accuracy; a structurally impossible position--as the
seated nude figure in the Louvre picture--is deliberately adopted to
heighten the effect of line or the balance of composition.
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