For ten years after Giorgione’s death his mood dominated Titian with most of the rising artists. It seemed likely to replace the sturdy and objective art of Venice with a quite alien subjectivism. Meanwhile the normal effort of old Giovanni, Bellini and of young Titian continued. The Renaissance offered to the outer eye new dignities and splendors. The inner eye went bankrupt in the numerous imitators of Giorgione, in trivial symbolism and merely playful mythology. After her brief pause in Arcadia, Venice once more took account of her own proud charms. The nymphs paled before the comparison, Arcadia vanished. But it never was wholly forgotten, and, ever since, those who have craved actually to see the golden age of poesy have had to consult Giorgione of Castelfranco.

Praise of Mantegna in the Renaissance

The immense authority of Mantegna kept his name on all honor lists of painters long after his death.

Lorenzo of Pavia, writing in 1504 to Isabella d’Este, says of a Madonna by Giovanni Bellini:

“The Painter has made a great effort to do himself honour, chiefly out of respect to M. Andrea Mantegna, and although it is true that in point of invention it cannot compare with the work of Messer Andrea, that most excellent master, I pray Your Excellency to take the picture, both for your own honour and also because of the merit of the work.”

Julia Cartwright, Isabella d’Este, New York, 1903, Vol. I, p. 351.

A little later Lorenzo writes:

“And, as I have said before, in point of invention no one can rival Andrea Mantegna, who is indeed a most excellent painter, the foremost of our age. But Zuan Bellini excels in colouring.” l. c. 352.

On Oct. 16, 1506, Lorenzo writes, on learning of Mantegna’s death:

“I am much grieved to hear of the death of our Messer Andrea Mantegna. For indeed we have lost a most excellent man and a second Apelles, but I believe that the Lord God will employ him to make some beautiful work. As for me, I can never hope to see again a finer draughtsman and more original artist.”

Isabella replied:

“Lorenzo,—We were sure that you would grieve over the death of M. Andrea Mantegna, for, as you say, a great light has gone out.”

Titian’s View of Mantegna

As late as 1519, Titian admired the Mantegnas at Mantua. Girolamo da Sestola, Isabella’s music master, writes to her:

“M. Dosso and M. Tiziano, another good master who is making a fine picture here [The Bacchanal, at Madrid] for the Lord Duke, went to Mantua. He saw all Mantegna’s works, and praised them greatly to our signor, and he also praised your studies. But above all, he admired your Tondo [the frescoed ceiling of the Camera degli Sposi, Fig. 219] exceedingly, and calls it the finest thing he has ever seen. Our Signor has one here, but Titian says yours is incomparably the finest.”

Ariosto as late as 1515 still includes Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini among the best artists. The list is instructive as to the fallibility of contemporary judgments. The two Dossi and Sebastiano del Piombo today have lost their place in the roll.

Lomazzo’s List of Great Painters and Their Kindred Poets

“Each painter has naturally had a genus more conformable to one poet rather than another, and has followed that poet in his work, as it is easy to see in the modern painters. For one sees that Leonardo has expressed the movement and decorum of Homer, Polidoro the grandeur and sweep of Virgil, Michelangelo the profound obscurity of Dante, Raphael the pure majesty of Petrarch, Andrea Mantegna the keen judgment of Sannazaro, Titian the variety of Ariosto, and Gaudenzio Ferrari the devotion which one finds expressed in the books of the saints.”

Paolo Lomazzo, Trattato dell’ Arte delle Pittura, Milan, 1584, p. 283.

See also Castiglione’s list in Illustrations to Chapter VI, p. 313.

Giorgione—Leonardo on Rural and Pastoral Delights

“What moves thee, O man, to quit thy city habitations and leave thy friends and kin, and go in places wild by reason of mountains and valleys, if not the natural beauty of the world, the which, if thou well considerest, thou enjoyest only through the sense of sight? And if the poet wishes to call himself also a painter in such matters, why do you not take such sites as described by the poet and stay at home without feeling the excessive heat of the sun? And would not this be more useful and less wearisome since it is done in coolness and without moving about and risk of illness?

“But the mind cannot enjoy the benefit of the eyes, windows of its habitation, and cannot receive the varieties of delightful spots, cannot see the shady valleys furrowed by the play of winding streams, cannot see the various flowers which with their colors make a harmony for the eye—and so with all the things which can be represented to that eye.”

“But if the painter in the cold and harsh winter time sets before thee those same places painted, and others, in which thou mayest have experienced thy pleasures beside some fountain, thou canst see again thyself as a lover, with thy loved one in blossoming meadows, under the sweet shadow of verdurous trees—wilt thou not receive quite an other pleasure than from hearing such an effect described by the poet?”

This is so fully in the mood of Giorgione’s idyllism that one likes to think that he may have talked over such themes with Leonardo when they met in Venice in 1500.