The Venetian painters were distinguished by their love for the kindred art of music. Giorgione himself was an admirable musician, and linked with all that is akin to music in his work, is his love for painting groups of people knit together by this bond. He uses it as a pastime to bring them into company, and the rich chords of colour seem permeated with the chords of sound. Not always, however, does he need even this excuse; his "conversation-pieces" are often merely composed of persons placed with indescribable grace in exquisite surroundings, governed by a mood which communicates itself to the beholder. With the Florentines, the cartoon was carefully drawn upon the wall and flat tints were superimposed. They knew beforehand what the effect was to be; but the Venetians from this time gradually worked up the picture, imbedding tints, intensifying effects, one touch suggesting another, till the whole rich harmony was gradually evoked. With the Florentines, too, the figures supply the main interest; the background is an arbitrary addition, placed behind them at the painter's leisure, but Giorgione's and Titian's _fêtes champêtres_ and concerts could not _be_ at all in any other environment. The amber flesh-tints and the glowing garments are so blended with the deep tones of the landscape, that one would not instil the mood the artist desires without the other. Piero di Cosimo and Pintoricchio can place delightful nymphs and fairy princesses in idyllic scenes, and they stir no emotion in us beyond an observant pleasure, a detached amusement; but Giorgione's gloomy blues, his figures shining through the warm dusk of a summer evening, waken we hardly know what of vague yearning and brooding memory. In the "Fête Champêtre" of the Louvre he acquires a frankly sensuous charm. He becomes riper, richer in feeling, and displays great exuberance of style. The woman filling her pitcher at the fountain is exquisite in line and curve and amber colour. She seems to listen lazily to the liquid fall of the water mingling with the half-heard music of the pipes. The beautiful idyll in the Giovanelli Palace is full of art of composition. It is built up with uprights; pillars are formed by the groups of trees and figures, cut boldly across by the horizontal line of the bridge, but the figures themselves are put in without any attention to subject, though an unconscious humorist has discovered in them the domestic circle of the painter. The man in Venetian dress is there to assist the left-hand columnar group, placed at the edge of the picture after the manner of Leonardo. The woman and child lighten the mass of foliage on the right and make a beautiful pattern. The white town of Castelfranco sings against the threatening sky, the winds bluster through the space, the trees shiver with the coming storm. Here and there leafy boughs are struck in with a slight, crisp touch, in which we can follow readily the painter's quick impression.