to which the eye thus naturally reverts. The figures and the landscape
are brought into close relation by this subtle scheme, and the picture
becomes, not figures with landscape background, but landscape with
figures.

The reproduction unduly exaggerates the contrasts of light and shade,
and conveys little of the mellowness and richness of atmospheric effect
which characterise the original. Unlike the brilliance of colouring in
the Castelfranco picture, dark reds, browns, and greens here give a
sombre tone which is accentuated by the dullness of surface due to old
varnishes.

[Illustration: _Hanfstängl photo. Vienna Gallery_

AENEAS, EVANDER, AND PALLAS]

"The Three Philosophers," or "The Chaldean Sages," as the picture at
Vienna has long been strangely named, shows the artist again treating a
classical story in his own fantastic way. Virgil has enshrined in verse
the legend of the arrival of the Trojan Aeneas in Italy,[17] and
Giorgione depicts the moment when Evander, the aged seer-king, and his
son Pallas point out to the wanderer the site of the future Capitol.
Again we find the same poetical presentation, not representation, of a
legendary subject, again the same feeling for the beauties of nature.
How Giorgione has revelled in the glories of the setting sun, the long
shadows of the evening twilight, the tall-stemmed trees, the moss-grown
rock! The figures are but a pretext, we feel, for an idyllic scene,
where the story is subordinated to the expression of sensuous charm.

This work was seen by the Anonimo in 1525, in the house of Taddeo