Giorgio Vasari

“ By this beautiful and admirable fancy, Giorgione desired to prove that painting is, in effect, the superior art, requiring more talent and demanding higher effort: he also shows that it is capable of presenting more at one view than is practicable in sculpture. ”

“ In the same place there is, moreover, a picture of Spring, which appears to me to be one of Giorgione’s best works in fresco, and it is much to be lamented that this painting has been so cruelly injured by time. For my part, I am persuaded that there is nothing which so grievously injures fresco-paintings as do the south winds, and this they do more particularly when the work is in the neighbourhood of the sea, since they then ahvays bring with them a saline humidity which is exceedingly noxious. ”

“ It is related that Giorgione, being in conversation with certain sculptors, at the time when Andrea del Verrocchio was engaged with his bronze horse, these artists maintained that, since Sculpture was capable of exhibiting various aspects in one sole figure, from the fact that the spectator can walk round it, so it must, on this account, be acknowledged to surpass painting, which could not do more than display a given figure in one particular aspect. ”

“ He was brought up in the school of the Bellini, and his progress was so rapid as to awaken the envy of his master. For various details and certain remarks concerning the works of this artist, see Kugler, Geschichte der Malerei. ↑ The Venetian writers do not agree with Vasari in the assertion that Giorgione acquired his manner from the works of Leonardo. Lanzi considers him to have been merely excited, by the fame of Leonardo, to attempt the creation of a new style (see History, &c., vol. ii. p. 134) . The manner of Giorgione is indeed by no means similar to that of Leonardo. ”

“ He executed numerous portraits for different Italian Princes, and many of his works were sent beyond the confines of Italy, as specimens worthy to bear testimony to the fact that, if Tuscany abounded at all times in masters of eminence, neither were the districts beyond the mountains altogether abandoned or wholly forgotten by Heaven. ”

“ The second is much larger, and is the portrait of a man taken from the life; in the hand this figure holds the red barett-cap of a commander, the mantle is of furs, and beneath it appears one of those tunics, after the ancient fashion, which are well known ”