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Vasari. the Life of Giorgione

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Vasari. the Life of Giorgione The Life ofGiorgione da Castelfranco, Venetian Painter [c. 1478-1510] In the same period that Florence was acquiring so much fame through the works of Leonardo, no small embellishment was bestowed upon Venice by the talent and excellence of one of its citizens who surpassed by far the Bellinis,* whom the Venetians held in such high esteem, as well as every other artist who had painted in that city up to that time. This was Giorgio, born in Castelfranco in the province of Treviso in the year 1478 while the doge was Giovan Mozenigo, the brother of Doge Piero, and because of his physical features and his greatness of spirit, he was in time called Giorgione.* Although Giorgione was a man of the most humble origins, he was, however, nothing but gentle and well-mannered all his life. He was brought up in Venice, continuously took delight in affairs of the heart, and was so greatly pleased by the sound of the lute that, in his time, he played and sang divinely; he was for that reason often engaged for various musical events and gatherings of the nobility. He studied design and enjoyed it enormously, and in this study nature favoured him so strongly that he developed a passion for beautiful things and did not want to include any- thing in his work that was not drawn from life. He was so under nature's domination and imitated it so well that not only did he acquire a reputation for having surpassed Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, but also for rivalling those artists work- ing in Tuscany who were the authors of the modern style. Giorgione had seen some of the things done by Leonardo that, as has been mentioned, were very subtly shaded off and darkened, as has been said, through the use of deep shadows. 3OO GIORGIONE And this style pleased him so much that, while he lived, he always went back to it, imitating it most especially in his oil paintings. Since he appreciated the good qualities of crafts- manship, Giorgione always used to pick out the most beautiful and varied subjects he could find to put in his works. And nature gave him such a gracious spirit that, in either oil or fresco, he created living forms and other images so soft, so harmonious, and so carefully shaded off in to the shadows that many of the most skilful artists of those times agreed he had been born to infuse life into his figures and to reproduce the freshness of living flesh more than any other artist who had ever painted, not only in Venice but anywhere. In the beginning Giorgione worked in Venice, where he painted many Madonnas as well as other living portraits, which are both very lifelike and beautiful, as can still be seen in three very beautiful heads he did in oil which are in the study of the Most Reverend Grimani, the Patriarch of Aquileia. One represents David with his hair falling down to his shoulders, as was customary in those days (and is said to be Giorgione's self-portrait), which is so animated and full of colour that it seems to be made of real flesh; the arm in which David is holding the severed head of Goliath, and his chest, are covered in armour. The second contains a much larger portrait, drawn from life, the portrait of a man who is holding in his hand the red beret of a commander and wearing a leather collar, with one of those cloaks in the antique style below; this picture is thought to have been painted for an army general. The third portrait is that of a child, as beauti- fully executed as it could be, with hair as soft as fleece, which bears witness to Giorgione's pre-eminence no less than to the admiration which the Patriarch, who quite rightly cherished these works, always felt for his talent. In Florence, in the home of the sons of Giovanni Borgherini is a portrait by Giorgione's own hand of Giovanni as a young man in Venice, and the painting also includes his tutor; one could not see two heads with better flesh tones or more beauti- ful hues in the shadows. In Anton de' Nobili's home is another head of a captain in armour which is very animated and lively and is said to be one of the captains that Gonsalvo Ferrante GIORGIONE 3OI brought with him to Venice -when he visited Doge Agostino Barberigo; it is said that Giorgione painted the great Gonsalvo in armour at that time, creating a truly exceptional painting of incomparable beauty, and that Gonsalvo carried it off with him.* Giorgione painted many other extremely fine portraits which are scattered throughout Italy in many places, for example, the portrait of Lionardo Loredano, which Giorgione painted when he was doge and which made me think I was seeing that most serene prince alive when I saw it displayed during a Feast of the Assumption. Besides this, there is one in Faenza, in the home of Giovanni da Castel Bolognese (an engraver of cameos and crystal and so forth) that was done for his father-in-law, a work truly sublime, for its harmonious and delicate shading of colours seems to be done in relief rather than painted. Giorgione enjoyed painting in fresco, and among the many works he did he frescoed the entire facade of the Ca! Soranzo on the Piazza di San Polo. On it, besides many pictures, scenes, and other fanciful inventions of his, a picture worked in oil on the plaster can be seen which has withstood water, sun, and wind to remain intact up to our own time. Also, there is a pic- ture of spring, which I find to be one of the most beautiful things he ever painted in fresco, and it is a great pity that time has so cruelly damaged it. In my opinion, nothing harms a fresco more than the sirocco winds, especially near the ocean where they always carry a salty moisture with them. In the year 1504, a terrible fire broke out in Venice in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi near the Rialto Bridge which destroyed everything, including the merchandise, and inflicted great losses on the merchants. The Signoria of Venice ordered it to be rebuilt, and it was done very quickly with more comfort- able accommodations, as well as greater magnificence, decora- tion, and beauty, and, since Giorgione's fame had grown, those in charge of the project deliberated and arranged for Giorgione to colour it in fresco according to his own wishes, provided that he demonstrate his talent by producing an exemplary work, since it would have the most beautiful position and location in that city. And so, setting to work, Giorgione thought of nothing other than to paint figures after 3O2 GIORGIONE his own fantasy in order to demonstrate his talent; and in truth, there are no historical scenes which have any special order or which represent the deeds of any distinguished per- son, either ancient or modern; and, as for me, I have never understood his figures, nor have I ever, with my questioning, found anyone who did, for here is a woman, there a man in different poses; one figure stands near the head of a lion, another with an angel in the guise of Cupid, and you cannot tell what it means.* Directly over the main door opening into the Merzeria is a woman seated who, like a figure of Judith, has the head of a dead giant at her feet, and who is lifting the head with her sword and speaking to a German below her. I have been unable to explain why Giorgione created this figure, unless he wanted her to represent Germania. None the less, one can clearly see that his figures are well grouped and that he always continued to improve his work, for there are heads and parts of figures that are extremely well executed and coloured in a most lively fashion. And everything that he did there, Giorgione took pains to copy only from living things rather than imitating another style. This building is celebrated in Venice and famous no less for what Giorgione painted there than for its convenience to businesses and its usefulness to the public. Giorgione worked on a picture of Christ carrying the cross and a Jew pulling Him along which, with the passage of time, •was placed in the Church of San Rocco, and today, because of the devotion in which it is held by many people, it performs miracles, as we can see. Giorgione worked in different places, such as Castelfranco and in the province of Treviso; he painted many portraits for various Italian rulers and many of his works were sent abroad as objects of true worth to bear wit- ness to the fact that, if Tuscany had an overabundance of artisans in every period, the region beyond Tuscany near the mountains had not always been abandoned and forgotten by heaven. It is said that during the time Andrea Verrocchio was cre- ating his bronze horse,* Giorgione got into an argument with some sculptors who insisted that sculpture was superior to painting, since sculpture showed in a single figure various GIORGIONE 303 attitudes and aspects to anyone walking around it, whereas painting showed only one side of a figure; Giorgione was of the opinion that in a painted scene one could see at a single glance, -without having to walk about, all the types of attitudes that a man can express in a number of gestures (something sculpture is incapable of doing unless the observer changes his location and point of view so that he sees several different aspects of a piece); and he proposed something further, for he wanted to represent the front, back, and two profiles with a single painted figure, a proposal which made them see reason.
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