Giorgione never wrought so well as Burne-Jones, because he lived in a
different age--all art is an evolution. Painting is a form of expression,
just as language is a form of expression. Every man who writes English is
debtor to Shakespeare. Every man who paints and expresses something of
that which his soul feels is debtor to Giorgione and Botticelli. But to
judge of the greatness of an artist--mind this--you must compare him with
his contemporaries, not with those who were before or those who came
after. The old masters are valuable, not necessarily for beauty, but
because they reveal the evolution of art.

Between Burne-Jones and Giorgione came Botticelli. Now, Botticelli
builded on Giorgione, while Burne-Jones builded on Botticelli. Aubrey
Beardsley, dead at the age at which Keats died, builded on both, but he
perverted their art and put a leer where Burne-Jones placed faith and
abiding trust. Aubrey Beardsley got the cue for his hothouse art from one
figure in Botticelli's "Spring," I need not state which figure: a glance
at the picture and you behold sulphur fumes about the face of one of the
women.

Did Aubrey Beardsley infuse his own spirit into his work? Yes, I think he
did. Mrs. Jameson says, "There are no successful imitations of Giorgione,
neither can there be, for the spirit of the man is in every face he drew,
and the people who try to draw like him always leave that out."

There are various pictures in the Louvre, the National Gallery, and the
Pinacothek at Munich, signed with Giorgione's name, but Mrs. Jameson
declares they are not his, "because they do not speak to your soul with
that mild, beseeching look of pity," Possibly we should make allowance
for Mrs. Jameson's warm praise--other women talked like that when
Giorgione was alive.