MICROSTORY OF ART
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How to tell Titian from Giorgione? Does this matter? Is this what we are going to learn here? To be out of work throughout our life, since we are not capable to produce something useful, something meaningful, something practical?
If you would like to put it this way – yes. This is not something useful, and by the way, to tell Titian from Giorgione, isn’t what we are going to learn here anyway.
First of all: this is about a question that art historical tradition has been struggling with since… since whenever (see Hope 2003). One has addressed this question intuitively, which means, one has attempted to simply intuitively tell works by Titian from works by Giorgione, or in relying more on documents. And then Giovanni Morelli had come, attempting to assemble (also) distinctive visual clues, to tell works by Titian from works by Giorgione more rationally. And we come closer to what this is all about, what connoisseurship is all about, and what an Online Journal dedicated to all things visual and artistic is all about.
Not about things visual alone (and not about useless things alone either). Because this is about how to tell anything from anything. About looking and what it is not. About looking and what it is (without our knowning or being aware). About how our looking at things is informed by all sorts of things (and not a mere sensual activity, but also an intellectual, interpretive activity). And besides all that, it is about getting to know two major painters as intimately as one may get to know art at all.
And now again: Yes, it is not about useful things. Not about becoming smarter for another time, but maybe to become a little wiser at all. And this, of course and as always: indirectly, might be something to make use of. Whereever, whenever. And how? – this one has to find out and to decide for oneself.

Now what we are going to do here is to publish two things. And since, at the moment, we are busy writing The Giovanni Morelli Monograph, this again has to do with Morelli. Namely we have become aware of a slip of paper, yet unpublished, with Morelli naming those clues that seemed to be (for him) to be characteristic for Titian. Revealing Titian’s hand.
He named these clues because he wanted his pupil, again: Jean Paul Richter, to check out some works for him. And therefore he named things more explicitly than usual, resulting with us, to know better what, in Morelli’s view, could be a telling difference. Helping us, if found in a work in question, to name it as a work by Titian.
And on the other hand, we have assembled clues, drawing from all of Morelli’s works, that is, putting together scattered informations (and in some sense doing for that Morelli did left others to do) that might be telling clues as to Giorgione – again taking Morelli’s view.
Which is not to say that necessarily we do share his view. But it is simply about getting to know somebody’s view on artistic things, a very specific view here. And again it is about much more than that. Because we may also learn by this that we do need somebody to give us his view on things, to find out how one may look at things at all. Sharing someone else’s view, or partly sharing, or not sharing at all. And to develop our own view on things. We do need teachers, in a word. Also in looking. Not to be right in the end (what a pathetic aim this would be, if this was what connoisseurship is all about?). But to explore what looking, telling a difference might be all about. As such. Whenever, whereever. To whatever purpose. And in relation to art, since we may find looking at art, if not being useful, at least being worthwhile (taking our individual view here).
And these are basic things, maybe even too basic to one wanting to be reminded of such things. But starting from a very, from a most basic level might also be fruitful as to getting a new grasp of things at all. In brief: why not going back to old Titian and Giorgione, and trying to tell the differences between the two of them (or having them tell us)? (And one more thing: hardly anyone has ever managed to do this convincingly, thus: take it also as a sport and take the challenge…).

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM


ONE) Giovanni Morelli on how to recognize Titian – a slip of paper


»Eine Bitte. Ich finde in meinen Formstudien folgende Bemerkungen zu Tizian:
1. Nei suoi quadri giovanili trovo la forma del suo orecchio quasi sempre cosi C – vale a dire rotonda e senza distacco del lobolo –
2. il polpaccio del pollice à quasi sempre caricato, specialmente negli uomini –
3. Le vesti formano sulle spalle assai sovente questa piega rettangolare

etc.

Nun würde ich Sie bitten[,] bei den 3 Bildern Tizians in der Nat. Gallery und bei den andern[,] die von ihm in London sich noch befinden sollten, nachsehen zu wollen[,] ob diese rechtwinkligen Falten auch dort vorkommen? –«


(Source: Bibliotheca Hertziana, Nachlass Jean Paul Richter; transcription of undated slip of paper by hand of Morelli)



A C-shaped ear, a rectangular fold? (compare also Morelli 1890, p. 404, for an acute angled (»scharfwinkelige«) fold as seen often in Titian)

Notes (DS):
Specific clues: It goes without saying (but maybe it also bears repeating) that Morelli’s view of Titian’s artistic personality was not limited to a perceiving of this more specific clues. In Titian and Giorgione he also saw the embodiments of literary genres (Morelli 1891, p. 278: »Giorgione war eine echte, harmlose, lebensfrohe und dabei so tiefsinnige Dichternatur, ein Lyriker, im Gegensatze zu Tizian, der durch und durch Dramatiker war.«), and one might and should also ask what distinctive properties we may find, distinctive visual properties, if addressing the question of attribution on this very level (and with or without referring to actual literary sources that a visual artist might be referring to or not). We might be forced to look for an appropriate language, as for example the language of a stage director, if it is about discerning ways to stage things visually, because Giorgione might be referred to as a poet, but he still does, as a painter, also stage things (poetic scenarios) visually.
National Gallery: In his 1883 book on Italian art in the London National Gallery (pp. 84ff.) Jean Paul Richter mentions four authentic works by Titian in the National Gallery: the Holy Family with a Shepherd (see on the right), the Madonna and Child with Saints (see on the right and detail above), Bacchus and Ariadne and Noli me Tangere (see both below); he also mentions as an authentic work by Titian in London a Madonna and Child in Bridgewater House (there under the name of Palma Vecchio). The ›Ariosto‹ in the National Gallery he does not consider as by Titian (but rather by Palma Vecchio), the Concert, the Rape of Ganymede and the Tribute Money as by School of Titian, and the Venus and Adonis as being a copy and also belonging to the School of Titian.
Hand/Ear: For Morelli referring to the typically Titianesque type of hand and (round) ear see for example Morelli 1890, p. 58 (compare also M/R. p. 46, 152 (folds), 252, 323, 415 and 485); as of the most reliable clue Morelli certainly thought of the Titianesque (caricatured or exaggeratedly rendered) ball of the thumb (›Daumenballen‹); in Morelli 1891, p. 298, note 1, he does state of having found it confirmed in 50 works by Titian, and apparently he considered this visual clue to be a characteristic defect (and as such perhaps not as an expression of the artist’s mind, but rather as a habit of the hand, and, which is more implied than stated – but equally or even more important –, as a property not found in other artists’ works close to Titian).

INTERLUDE:
Now before we turn to look at Giorgione there is something very basic to remind again. To remind as to the Morellian approach to look at things, artistic things, visual clues very in particular.
Because, although it is becoming obvious anyway, it might also be useful to say it explicitly: what Morelli presented art historical tradition with, was not something completed but rather a work in progress. In other words: what we are observing here is not Morelli having found all the necessary visual evidence to ascertain his attributions to Giorgione or Titian, but Morelli having found some visual distinctive properties that he found to be relatively reliable and fit to work with, and, and this ›and‹ is what we are getting at: Morelli still searching. For more, for better clues, for any tool that might still guarantee a higher degree of certainty.

And this is of such basic importance to remind because here the one, often rather invisible half of applying the Morellian method does show: the working with reference materials, the process of observing stylistic regularities, whose regularity is not to be regarded as being absolute, but relative. And it bears repeating to say (this is the one thing that really does bear repeating) that Morelli had not enveiled the one and only inmistakeable clue that one could from now on rely on, and rely on solely, as if one would rely on a painter’s DNA. This was only what the superficial Morelli interpretation (fearing the alleged having been found of such distinctive (i.e. exclusively being distinctive) properties that alone, again allegedly, attributions could be based on) always had thought or suggested. But the observing of Morelli’s practices, let alone the careful studying what Morelli actually had said, teaches us better. This was not about telling a painter by the earlobe (which is a pretty good summing up of the Morelli caricature mentioned here), but about assembling clues, based on the observing of stylistic regularities; knowing also that it cannot be at all about a mere stating that such regularities allegedly do exist, but that it has to be about a comprehensibly showing as well, and above all things. And this is, all too often, where Morelli and his followers also failed to meet scientific standards, and also standards they had actually put forward themselves.
Which is why we feel it to be necessary to do some work for them here, in assembling the visual clues they chose to work with. And feeling that this is indeed work to do. But knowing that not to do this work means simply a not living up to scientific standards of connoisseurship and in connoisseurship, in brief: a failure.

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MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM


TWO) Giovanni Morelli on how to recognize Giorgione


As the primal and most important source we have to name Morelli 1891, but even in this work, his revised edition of the first part of his work on the galleries of Munich, Dresden and Berlin (Morelli 1880), the references as to Giorgionesque visual properties are scattered. One might begin with references as to Giorgione’s artistic personality (p. 290, and again p. 278 as quoted above).
On page 280 of Morelli 1891 (compare Morelli 1880, pp. 188ff.) Morelli now enlists properties that he feels confident enough to name (after on p. 276 he has checked, in vain, a painting for a Giorgionesque shape of hand that he fails to define explicitly, but indirectly has us see later [compare below]); these properties are: lengthy oval of head in female faces, eyes that are positioned somewhat too close to the nose, a fantasy-way of clothing figures, very often hands with outstretched fingers, and poetic background landscapes with high-stemmed trees; this lists Morelli chooses now to end with a laconic ›etc.‹, suggesting that there is more work to do (and maybe also that he is not going to reveal all the work he himself already has done).
On p. 282 he is moreover mentioning a Giorgionesque head of a boy, and in discussing the Palazzo Pitti Nymph and Faun (see below on the right), he does mention as Giorgionesque properties: type of head (nymph) with short forehead, a charming way of arranging hair on the forehead, eyes in narrow distance to each other, and here Morelli also does refer to the Giorgionesque hand with the pointy fingers;
On page 287ff. he goes on, in unfolding also arguments of quality and artistic personality, to discuss the Dresden Sleeping Venus, but we have to go back here, in interpreting the above mentioned etc. as a having us redirected to the earlier edition of Morelli 1891, namely to Morelli 1880 (I am not going into the question of translation here, but it is certainly possible that much of this scattered mess got lost); since, beside of the fact that a Giorgionesque cloud does only finds mentioning here at all (p. 196f., note 1) other Giorgionesque properties Morelli also does mention only in his earlier referring to the Dresden Sleeping Venus showing them; namely (also p. 196f., note 1): a strip of light on the horizon, a Giorgionesque cloth with a golden hem, pinched folds (white blanket), the shape of thumb (as compared to Titian), and again the (delightful) oval of the face;
and we might conclude this overview in referring to Morelli thinking about the Giorgionesque shape of ear, yet never described in his published writings (which might be interpreted as not having found it as a relatively reliable clue), but on grounds of a marginal note and a drawing by hand of Morelli in a Palazzo Pitti guide of 1867 (»orecchio tutto giorgionesco«), we might assume that such typical shape, such type of ear, actually – and not only for some time – did exist for him; see Anderson 1991b, p. 27f., note 27; and compare Morelli 1890, p. 59, for Morelli indeed and explicitly referring to a Giorgionesque type of ear, which however is not being defined, described, referred to in an actual painting, or visually rendered in any way);
to check the Morellian way of seeing things one should, last but not least, consult an article entitled Giorgionefragen by Jean Paul Richter (Jean Paul Richter 1927/28), and moreover M/R, p. 147ff. (as to the Judith), as well as another letter, not published in M/R, namely Jean Paul Richter to GM, 16 March 1889 [quoted in my biography of Jean Paul Richter (Seybold 2014a, p. 166, note 273), because of his giving a full explanation of why a painting had to be considered as not being by Giorgione, but by Sebastiano del Piombo].

The Three Ages of Man of Palazzo Pitti
(on top; then given to Lorenzo Lotto)
Morelli in 1881 tended to consider as a work by Giorgione,
(see GM to Jean Paul Richter, 1 March 1881 (M/R, p. 153));
but not the Concert of Palazzo Pitti,
which he tended to consider as a work by
Giorgione-influenced Titian (p. 152).

The Pitti Nifa e satiro (now being attributed to Dosso Dossi)

Notes (DS):
References: For full titles of literature cited see here.
Properties: Compare as a supplement to the above mentioned properties also Morelli’s referring to a (subtle and astonishing) ›color chord‹ in Giorgione (in Morelli 1891, p. 315).

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The Pastoral Concert Morelli, in 1878, considered as being a work by Giorgione,
influencing young Titian (see GM to Jean Paul Richter, 5 April 1878 (M/R, p. 46));
the Louvre, today, does consider it to be by young Titian.

© DS