To describe them is impossible: enough to say that some glowing genius produced them; and whatever the experts admit, personally I prefer to consider that genius Giorgione.

Giorgione, who was born in 1477 and died young--at thirty-three--was, like Titian, the pupil of Bellini, but was greatly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci.

Later he became Titian's master.

He was passionately devoted to music and to ladies, and it was indeed from a lady that he had his early death, for he continued to kiss her after she had taken the plague.

(No bad way to die, either; for to be in the power of an emotion that sways one to such foolishness is surely better than to live the lukewarm calculating lives of most of us.) Giorgione's claim to distinction is that not only was he a glorious colourist and master of light and shade, but may be said to have invented small genre pictures that could be earned about and hung in this or that room at pleasure--such pictures as many of the best Dutch painters were to bend their genius to almost exclusively--his favourite subjects being music parties and picnics.