But he liked still
more to paint ideal scenes from his own fancy, where young people sit
in easy attitudes upon the grass, conversing for an instant in the
intervals of the music they make upon pipes and guitar. He was the
first artist, so far as I know, to paint these half real, half imaginary
scenes, of which our picture may be one. In all of them landscape bears
an important part, and in some the background has become the picture
and completely subordinated the figures. In this little 'Golden Age'
the landscape is quiet in tone, tinged with melancholy, romantic, to
suit the mood of the figures. Its colouring, though rich, is subdued,
more like the tints of autumn than the fresh hues of spring. The
Venetians excelled in their treatment of colour. They lived in an
uncommon world of it. Giorgione saw his picture in his mind's eye as
a blaze of rich colour; he did not see the figures sharply outlined
against a remote background, as are the three in Raphael's 'Knight's
Dream.' That does not mean that Raphael, like the artist of the Richard
II. diptych, failed to make his figures look solid, but that he saw
beauty most in the outlines of the body and the curves of the drapery,
irrespective of colour, whereas to Giorgione's eye outline was nothing
without colour and light and shade.
Pages:
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109