Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 2.djvu/404

396 zealous admirer of the good in art, Giorgione always selected for representation the most beautiful objects that he could find, and these he treated in the most varied manner: he was endowed by nature with highly felicitous qualities, and gave to all that he painted, whether in oil or fresco, a degree of life, softness, and harmony (being more particularly successful in the shadows), which caused all the more eminent artists to confess, that he was born to infuse spirit into the forms of painting, and they admitted that he copied the freshness of the living form more exactly than any other painter, not of Venice only, but of all other places.

In his youth Giorgione painted, in Venice, many very beautiful pictures of the Virgin, with numerous portraits from nature, which are most life-like and beautiful; of this we have proof in three heads of extraordinary beauty, painted in oil by his hand, and which are in the possession of the Most Reverend Grimani, Patriarch of Aquileia: one of these represents David (and, according to common report, is a portrait of the master himself); he has long locks, reaching to the shoulders, as was the custom of that time, and the colouring is so fresh and animating, that the face appears to be rather real than painted: the breast is covered with armour, as is the arm, with which he holds the head of Goliath. 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; this is believed to represent some leader of armies. The third picture is a Boy, with luxuriant curling hair, and is as beautiful as imagination can portray; these works bear ample testimony to the excellence of Giorgione, and no less than his deserts was the estimation in which he was ever held by that great patriarch,