ced Morelli to suggest Titian's name
as possible author of the "Concert." Nevertheless, I cannot allow this
plausible comparison to outweigh other and more vital considerations.
The subtlety of the composition, the bold sweep of diagonal lines, the
way the figure of the young monk is "built up" on a triangular design,
the contrasts of black and white, are essentially Giorgione's own. So,
too, is the spirit of the scene, so telling in its movement, gesture,
and expression. Surely it is needless to translate all that is most
characteristic of Giorgione in his most personal expression into a
"Giorgionesque" mood of Titian. No, let us admit that Titian owed much
to his friend and master (more perhaps than we yet know), but let us not
needlessly deprive Giorgione of what is, in my opinion at least, the
great creation of his maturer years, the Pitti "Concert." I am inclined
to place it about 1506-7, and to regard it as the earliest and finest
expression in Venetian art of that kind of genre painting of which we
have already studied another, though later example, "The Three Ages" (in
the Pitti). The second work where Crowe and Cavalcaselle hold a
different view from Morelli is a "Portrait of a Man" in the Gallery of
Rovigo (No. 11). The former writers declare that it, "perhaps more than
any other, approximates to the true style of Giorgione."[67] With such
praise sounding in one's ears it is somewhat of a shock to discover that
this "grave and powerfully wrought creation" is a miniature 7 by 6
inches in size. Such an insignificant fragment requires no serious
consideration; at most it would seem only to be a reduced copy after
some lost original. Morelli alludes to it as a copy after Palma, but one
may well doubt whether he is not referring to another portrait in the
same gallery (No. 123). Be that as it may, this "Giorgione" miniature
is sadly out of place among genuine pieces of the master.[68]

[Illustration: _Hanfstaengl photo. National Gallery, London_

THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI]

One other picture, of special interest to English people, is in dispute.
By Crowe and Cavalcaselle "The Adoration of the Magi," now in the
National Gallery (No. 1160), is attributed to the master himself; by
Morelli it was assigned to Catena.[69] This brilliant little panel is
admittedly by the same hand that painted the Beaumont "Adoration of the
Shepherds," and yet another picture presently to be mentioned. We have
already agreed to the prop