[136] Cariani is by some made responsible for the whole picture. A comparison with an authentic example hanging (in the new arrangement of the Long Gallery), close by, ought surely to convince the advocates of Cariani of their mistake. [137] Morto da Feltre is mentioned by Vasari as having assisted Giorgione in the decoration of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi. This was in 1508. Otherwise, we know of no pupils or assistants employed by the master, a fact which goes to show that his influence was felt, not so much through any personal teaching, as through his work. CHAPTER VI GIORGIONE'S ART, AND PLACE IN HISTORY The examination in detail of all those pictures best entitled, on internal evidence, to rank as genuine productions of Giorgione has incidentally revealed to us much that is characteristic of the man himself. We started with the axiom that a man's work is his best autobiography, and where, as in Giorgione's case, so little historical or documentary record exists, such indications of character as may be gleaned from a study of his life's work become of the utmost value. _Le style c'est l'homme_ is a saying eminently applicable in cases where, as with Giorgione, the personal element is strongly marked. The subject, as we have seen over and over again, is so highly charged with the artist's mood, with his individual feelings and emotions, that it becomes unrecognisable as mere illustration, and the work passes by virtue of sheer inspiration into the higher realms of creative art. Such fusion of personality and subject is the characteristic of lyrical art, and in this domain Giorgione is a supreme master. His genius, as Morelli rightly pointed out, is essentially lyrical in contradistinction to Titian's, which is essentially dramatic. Take the epithets that we have constantly applied to his pictures in the course of our survey, and see how they bear out this statement--epithets such as romantic, fantastic, picturesque, gay, or again, delicate, refined, sensitive, serene, and the like; these bear witness to qualities of mind where the keynote is invariably exquisite feeling. Giorgione was, in fact, what is commonly called a poet-painter, gifted with the artistic temperament to an extraordinary degree, essentially impulsive, a man of moods. It is inevitable that such a man produces work of varying merit; inequality must be a characteristic feature of his art. In less fortunate circumstances than those in which Giorgione was placed, such temperaments as his become peevish, morose, morbid; but his lines were cast in pleasant places, and his moods were healthy, joyous, and serene. He does not concern himself with the tragedy of life, with its pathos or its disappointments. In his two renderings of "Christ bearing the Cross"[138]--the only instances we have of his portrayal of the Man of Sorrows--he appeals more to our sense of the dignity of humanity, and to the nobility of the Christ, than to our tenderer sympathies. How