Page:Vasari - Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, volume 5.djvu/395

Rh any drawing on paper, was the best mode of proceeding and most perfectly in accord with the true principles of design.

But herein he failed to perceive that he who would give order to his compositions, and arrange his conceptions intelligibly, must first group them in different ways on the paper, to ascertain how they may all go together; for the fancy cannot fully realize her own intentions unless these be to a certain extent submitted to the corporal eye, which then aids her to form a correct judgment. The nude form also demands much study before it can be well understood, nor can this ever be done without drawing the same on paper; to be compelled always to have nude or draped figures before the eyes while painting, is no small restraint, but when the hand has been well practised on paper, a certain facility both in designing and painting is gradually obtained, practice in art supervenes, the manner and the judgment are alike perfected, and that laboured mode of execution mentioned above, is no more perceived. Another advantage resulting from drawing on paper is the store of valuable ideas which gradually fill the mind, enabling the artist to represent natural objects from his own thoughts, without being compelled to hold them constantly before him, nor does he who can draw, need labour to hide his want of design beneath the attractions of colouring, as many of the Venetian painters, Giorgione, II Palma, II Pordenone and others, who never saw the treasures of art in Rome, or works of the highest perfection in any other place, have been compelled to do.

Having seen the manner of Giorgione, Titian early resolved to abandon that of Gian Bellino, although well grounded therein. He now therefore devoted himself to this purpose, and in a short time so closely imitated Giorgione that his pictures were sometimes taken for those of that master, as will be related below. Increasing in age, judgment, and facility of hand, our young artist executed numerous works in fresco which cannot here be named individually, having been dispersed in various places; let it suffice to say, that they were such as to cause experienced men to anticipate the excellence to which he afterwards attained. At the time when Titian began to adopt the manner of Giorgione, being then not more than eighteen,