1160. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
School of Giorgione (Venetian: early 16th century). See 269.
See also (p. xx)
This picture—ascribed by Morelli and others to Catena (see 234)—is by some connected with the name of Giorgione. It displays, says Sir Edward Poynter, "the qualities which we should expect to find in a picture by Giorgione, and does not seem so far removed from the only absolutely authenticated work by him—the altar-piece at Castelfranco—as to make it impossible to attribute it to his hand. In qualities of drawing and composition it is superior to what we know of the work of Catena" (The National Gallery, i. 23). "The figures are Bellinesque, yet with that added touch of delicacy and refinement which Giorgione always knows how to impart. The richness of colouring, the depth of tone, the glamour of the whole, is far superior to anything we can point to with certainty as Catena's work; and no finer example of his 'Giorgionesque' phase is to be found than the sumptuous 'Warrior adoring the Infant Christ' (234) which hangs close by. Catena's work seems cold and studied beside the warmth and spontaneity of Giorgione's little panel" (Herbert Cook's Giorgione, p. 54). "Whoever painted it, it is worth many much larger canvases. The simple, flowing cast of the drapery, the general scheme of colour, and the quality of individual tints, such as the mellow yellow shaded with red, and the greenish-blue of the Virgin's mantle, are not like what I know of Catena. The lively, well-drawn child, with its supple limbs; the faces of the women, with full faces, short noses, and square jaws; the straight-necked horses, and many other things in this charming picture,—seem to me to proclaim a distinct, if unknown, master. Above all things distinct, perhaps, is the particular tone of reverence—naïve, quiet, but deep—that pervades the picture, a feeling which can scarcely have been imitated, but must have proceeded from the very character of the painter himself" (Monkhouse, In the National Gallery, p. 224).