To Loosen the Tongue of Mute Poetry: Giorgione's Self-Portrait 'as David' as a Paragone Demonstration

This is not what Vasari tells us: he describes Giorgione's Self‑portrait as 'fatta per Davit ‑ e per quel che si dice, 'e il suo ritratto', reflecting an incomprehension of Venetian allegory that is more obviously apparent in his disingenuous remarks about the frescos on the Fontego de' Todeschl[28] However, he reproduces, in this questioning tone, the very words of the 1528 inventory: 'F~tratto di Zorzon di sua mano fatto per david e Golia'. In the most basic terms, this clearly was seen as a self‑portrait; but it was also seen as something more, as allegorizing. Though Vasarl claimed not to recognize the significance of the Judt't fatta per Giustizia above the entrance on Titian's facade of the Fontego de' Todeschi, that significance is pretty clear; even though he does not unquestioningly accept the combination involved of a representation of the artist as David, its significance is again pretty clear: it is a visual representation of virtuous victory. There is no doubt that that is how David's conquest of Goliath was seen at the time, notably as depicted by Donatello, whose bronze David is reflected in the pose of Glorgione's own Judith in St Petersburg.[29]

 In the original Glorgione's illusionistically confrontational figures, caught in the instant, have an elusive, meditative reticence, and one can imagine something similar when standing before the Brunswick picture. However, the melancholy that the Brunswick copy has conveyed to several observers really is not appropriate to Giorgione's original.[30] Rather, the furrows on the brow (attested by Hollar and the Hampton Court copy) should be referred to those on Colleoni's in the monument by San Zanipolo, or possibly to the 'ciglia basse e strette' Leonardo recommended for an angry figure.[31] This David bears no harp; his armour marks him as a warrior, or rather as a knight,[32] and the blood still drips from Goliath's severed artery.

FOOTNOTES

28 A fuller analysis of the Fontego 'programme', including a discussion of Vasari's reaction to it, can be found in P. Holberton, 'Poetry and Painting in the Time of Giorgione', PhD diss., Warburg Institute, University of London 1989.

29 See C. M. Sperling, 'Donatello's Bronze "David" and the demands of Medici politics', The Burlington Magazine, 134, 1992, pp. 218ff., and M. M. Donato, 'Hercules and David in the Early Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio: Manuscript Evidence', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 54, 1991, pp. 83ff. See also J. Bialostocki, 'La gamba sinistra della Giuditta: 11 quadro di Giorgione nella storia del tema', in Giorgione e lumanesimo 1981 (as in n. 24 above), vol. 1, pp. 193ff.; I have not found S. Smith, 'A Nude Judith from Padua and the Reception of Donatello's Bronze David', Comitatis, 25, 1994, p. 59, but it may well be germane.

30 Cf. Miiller‑Hofstede 1957‑59 (as in n. 14 above), p. 30, followed by J. Anderson, 'The Giorgionesque Portrait: From Likeness to Allegory', in Giorgione. Atti del convegno internazionale di studio .... F. Pedrocco (Ed.), Asolo 1979, pp. 153ff. (esp. p. 154). S. Jacob, in Selbstbildnisse 1980 (as in n. 11 above), observed that such a melancholic interpretation would have been unique, and J.Woods‑Marsden, Renaissance Self‑Portraiture. The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, New Haven, London 1998, p. 118, related the work rather to Mantegna's self‑portrait.

31 Leonardo, Richter (Eds) 1970 (as in n. 2 above) , item 584 (BN 2038, fol. 29r).

32 For David as a figure of the perfect knight, see M. Keen, Chivalry, New Haven, London 1984, pp. 119‑23.