I shall mention only one more work of Albrecht Dürer's, that which is known as the Emperor Maximilian's Prayer Book. This is pen-and-ink sketches for the borders of a book (as the old missals were illuminated), which are now preserved in the Royal Library, Munich. In these little drawings the fancy of the great artist held high revel, by no means confining itself to serious subjects, such as apostles, monks, or even men in armour, but indulging in the most whimsical vagaries, with regard to little German old women, imps, piping squirrels, with cocks and hens hurrying to listen to the melody.
CHAPTER VI.
LATER ITALIAN ART—GIORGIONE, 1477-1511—CORREGGIO. ABOUT 1493-1534—TINTORETTO, 1512-1574—VERONESE, 1530-1588.
Giorgio Barbarelli, known as 'Giorgione,—in Italian, 'big,' or, as I have heard it better translated, 'strapping George'—was born at Castelfranco, in Treviso, about 1477, the same year in which Titian was born. Nothing is known of his youth before he came to Venice and studied in the school of Gian Bellini along with Titian.
The two men were friends in those days, but soon quarrelled, and Giorgione's early death completed their separation. Titian was impatient and arrogant; Giorgione seems to have been one of those proud, shy, sensitive men—possibly morbidly sensitive, with whom it is always difficult to deal; but it is recorded of him, as it is not recorded of his great compeer, that Giorgione was frank and friendly as an artist, however moody and fitful he might be as a man.
Giorgione soon became known. According to one account, he painted the façade of the house which he dwelt in, for an advertisement of his abilities as a painter, a device which was entirely successful in procuring him commissions; but unfortunately for posterity, these were frequently to paint other façades, sometimes in company with Titian; grand work, which has inevitably perished, if not by fire, by time and by the sea-damp of Venice, for to Venice Giorgione belonged, and there is no sign that he ever left it.
He had no school, and his love of music and society—the last taste found not seldom, an apparent anomaly, in silent, brooding natures—might tend to withdraw him from his art. He has left a trace of his love for music in his pictures of 'Concerts' and of 'Pastorals,' in which musical performances are made prominent. In Giorgione, with his romantic, idealizing temperament, genre [18] pictures took this form, while he is known to have painted from Ovid and from the Italian tales of his time. He was employed frequently to paint scenes on panels, for the richly ornamented Venetian furniture. Giorgione was not without a bent to realism in his very idealism, and is said to have been the first Italian painter who 'imitated the real texture of stuffs and painted draperies from the actual material.'
Giorgione died at the early age of thirty-three years, in 1511. One account represents him as dying of the plague, others attribute his death to a sadder cause. He is said to have had a friend and fellow-painter who betrayed their friendship, and carried off the girl whom Giorgione loved. Stung to the quick by the double falsehood, the tradition goes on to state that Giorgione fell into despair with life and all it held, and so died.
A portrait of Giorgione is in the Munich Gallery; it is that of a very handsome beardless lad, 'with a peculiar melancholy in the dark glowing eyes.'