essary for anyone who seeks to recover the missing or
unidentified works of an artist like Giorgione, first to define his
conception of the artist based upon a study of acknowledged materials.
The preceding chapter has been devoted to a survey of the best
authenticated pictures, the evidence for the genuineness of which is, as
we have seen, largely a matter of personal opinion. Nevertheless there
is, on the whole, a unanimity of judgment sufficient to warrant our
drawing several inferences as to the general character of Giorgione's
work, and to attempt a chronological arrangement of the twenty-six
pictures here accepted as genuine.

The first and most obvious fact then to be noted is the amazing variety
of subjects handled by the master. Religious paintings, whether
altar-pieces or easel pictures of a devotional character, are
interspersed with mediaeval allegories, genre subjects, decorative
_cassone_ panels, portraiture, and purely lyrical "Fantasiestuecke,"
corresponding somewhat with the modern "Landscape with Figures." Truly
an astonishing range! Giorgione, as we have seen, could not have been
more than eighteen years in active practice, yet in that short time he
gained successes in all these various fields. His many-sidedness shows
him to have been a man of wide sympathies, whilst the astonishing
rapidity of his development testifies to the precocity of his talent.
His versatility and his precocity are, in fact, the two most prominent
characteristics to be borne in mind in judging his art, for much that
appears at first sight incongruous, if not utterly irreconcilable, can
be explained on this basis. For versatility and precocity in an artist
are qualities invariably attended by unevenness of workmanship, as we
see in the cases of Keats and Schubert, who were gifted with the lyrical
temperament and powers of expression in poetry and music in
corresponding measure to Giorgione in painting. It would show want of
critical acumen to expect from Keats the consistency of Milton, or that
Schubert should keep the unvarying high level of Beethoven, and it is
equally unreasonable to exact from Giorgione the uniform excellence
which characterises Titian. I do not propose at this point to work out
the comparison between the painter, the musician, and the poet; this
must be reserved until the final summing-up of Giorgione as artist, when
we have examined all his work. But this point I do insist on, that from
the very nature of