The unfinished figure of the executioner evidently caused the artist much trouble, for pentimenti are frequent, and other outlines can be distinctly traced through the nude body. The effect of this clumsy figure is far from satisfactory; the limbs are not articulated distinctly; moreover, the balance of the whole composition is seriously threatened by the tragedy being enacted at the side instead of in the middle. The artist appears to have felt this difficulty so much that he stopped short at this point; at any rate, the living child remains unrepresented, nor is there any second child such as is required to illustrate the story. It looks as though the scheme was not carefully worked out before commencing, and that the artist found himself in difficulties at the last, when he had to introduce the dramatic motive, which apparently was not to his taste.
Now, all this fits in exactly with what we know of Giorgione's temperament; lyrical by nature, he would shrink from handling a great dramatic scene, and if such a task were imposed upon him he would naturally treat three-fourths of the subject in his own fantastic way, and do his best to illustrate the action required in the remaining part. The result would be (what might be expected) forced or stagey, and the action rhetorical, and that is exactly what has happened in this "Judgment of Solomon."
It is a natural inference that, supposing Giorgione to be the painter, he would never have selected such a subject of his own free will to be treated, as this is, on so large a scale. There may be, therefore, something in the suggestion which Crowe and Cavalcaselle make that this may be the large canvas ordered of Giorgione for the audience chamber of the Council, "for which purpose," they add, "the advances made to him in the summer of 1507 and in January 1508 show that the work he had undertaken was of the highest consequence."[[30]]
Be this as it may, the picture was in Venice, in the Casa Grimani di Santo Ermagora,[[31]] in Ridolfi's day (1646), and that writer specially mentions the unfinished executioner. It passed later into the Marescalchi Gallery at Bologna, where it was seen by Lord Byron (1820), and purchased at his suggestion by his friend Mr. Bankes, in whose family it still remains.[[32]]
It will be gathered from what I have written that Giorgione and no other is, in my opinion, the author of this remarkable work. Certain of the figures are reminiscent of those by him elsewhere—e.g. the old man with the beard is like the Evander in the Vienna picture, the young man next the executioner resembles the Adrastus in the Giovanelli figures, and the young man stooping forward next to Solomon recurs in the "Three Ages," in the Pitti, which Morelli considered to be by Giorgione. The most obvious resemblances, however, are to be found in the Glasgow "Adulteress before Christ," a work which several modern critics assign to Cariani, although Dr. Bode, Sir Walter Armstrong, and others, maintain it to be a real Giorgione. Consistently enough, those who believe in Cariani's authorship in the one case, assert it in the other,[[33]] and as consistently I hold that both are by Giorgione. It is conceivable that Cariani may have copied Giorgione's types and attitudes, but it is inconceivable to me that he can have so entirely assimilated Giorgione's temperament to which this "Judgment of Solomon" so eloquently witnesses. Moreover, let no one say that Cariani executed what Giorgione designed, for, in spite of its imperfect condition, the technique reveals a painter groping his way as he works, altering contours, and making corrections with his brush; in fact, it has all the spontaneity which characterises an original creation.
The date of its execution may well have been 1507-8, perhaps even earlier; at any rate, we must not argue from its unfinished state that the painter's death prevented completion, for the style is not that of Giorgione's last works. Rather must we conclude that, like the "Aeneas and Evander," and several other pictures yet to be mentioned, Giorgione stopped short at his work, unwilling to labour at an uncongenial task (as, perhaps, in the present case), or from some feeling of dissatisfaction at the result, nay, even despair of ever realising his poetical conceptions.
To this important trait in Giorgione's character further reference will be made when all the available material has been examined; suffice it for the moment that this "Judgment of Solomon" is to me a most typical example of the great artist's work, a revelation alike of his weaknesses as of his powers.
Following our method of investigation we will next consider the pictures which Morelli accredits to Giorgione over and above the seven already discussed, wherein he concurs with Crowe and Cavalcaselle. These are twelve in number, and include some of the master's finest works, some of them unknown to the older authorities, or, at any rate, unrecorded by them. Here, therefore, the opinions of Crowe and Cavalcaselle are not of so much weight, so it will be necessary to see how far Morelli's views have been confirmed by later writers during the last twenty years.
Three portraits figure in Morelli's list—one at Berlin, one at Buda-Pesth, and one in the Borghese Gallery at Rome.