But the Venetians were not merely a luxurious people. The poetry of
the lagoons, and the glory of the sunset skies, imparted to their lives
the wealth of a rare romance. Even in Venice to-day, now that the
steamers have spoilt the peace of the canals and the old orange-winged
sailing-boats no longer crowd against the quays, the dreamy atmosphere
of the city retains its spell.
Few artists ever felt and expressed this atmosphere better than
Giorgione, the painter of the first of our Venetian pictures. He was
one of the great artists of the Renaissance who died young, ten years
before Raphael, but their greatness is scarcely comparable. Like
Raphael, Giorgione was precocious, but unlike him he painted in a style
of his own that from the very beginning owed little to any one else.
He saw beauty in his own way, and was not impelled to see it differently
by coming into contact with other artists, however great. Unlike
Raphael, he was not a great master of the art of composition. In the
little picture before us the grouping of the figures is not what may
be called inevitable, like that in the 'Knight's Dream.
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