, is Cariani, the Bergamasque, who at different times
in his life also successfully imitated Palma and Lotto. In his
Giorgionesque manner Cariani often creates charming figures and strong
portraits, though he pushes his colour to a coarse, excessive tone. His
family group in the Roncalli Collection at Bergamo is very close to
Giorgione. Seven persons, three women and four men, are grouped together
upon a terrace, and behind them stretches a calm landscape, half
concealed by a brocaded hanging. The effect of the whole is restful,
though it lacks Giorgione's concentration of sensation. Then, again,
Cariani flies off to the gayer, more animated style of Lotto. Later on,
when he tries to reproduce Giorgione's pastoral reveries, his shepherds
and nymphs become mere peasants, herdsmen, and country wenches, who have
nothing of the idyllic distinction which Giorgione never failed to
infuse. "The Adulteress before Christ" at Glasgow still bears the
greater name, but its short, vulgar figures and faulty composition
disclaim his authorship, while Cariani is fully capable of such
failings, and the exaggerated, red-brown tone is quite characteristic
of him.

These painters are more than merely imitative; they are also typical.
Giorgione's new manner had appealed to some quality inherent and
hereditary in their nature, and the essential traits they single out and
dwell upon are the traits which appeal equally to the instincts of both.
It is this which makes their efforts more sympathetic than those of
other second-rate painters. Colour, or rather the peculiar way in which
Giorgione used colour, made a natural appeal to them, and it is a medium
which does make an immediate appeal and covers a multitude of
shortcomings.

But Giorgione was not to leave his message to the mercy of mere
disciples and imitators, however apt. Growing up around him were men to
whom that message was an inspiration and a trumpet-call, men who were to
develop and deepen it, endowing it with their own strength, recognising
that the way which the young pioneer of Castelfranco had pointed out
was the one into which they could unhesitatingly pour their whole
inclination. The instinct for colour was in their very blood. They
turned to it with the heart-whole delight with which a bird seeks the
air or a fish the water, and foremost among them, to create and to
consolidate, was the mighty Titian.

PRINCIPAL WORKS

_Cariani._

Bergamo. Carrara: Madonna and S