"abundant
flanks and snow-white breast." A type glowing with health and instinct
with life, but, to say the truth, rather dull, without deep passions,
and with no look that reveals profound emotions or the struggle of a
soul. From what we see of Bordone's female portraits and from some of
the mythological compositions he has left, he might have been among the
most sensually minded of men. His beautiful courtesan, in the National
Gallery, is an almost over-realistic presentment of a woman who has
just parted from her lover. His women, with their carnation cheeks and
expressionless faces, are like beautiful animals; but, as a matter
of fact, their painter was sober and temperate in his life, very
industrious, and devoted to his widowed mother. About 1536 he married
the daughter of a Venetian citizen, and had a son, who became one of the
many insignificant painters of the end of the sixteenth century. Most
of his days were divided between his little Villa of Lovadina in the
district of Belluno, and his modest home in the Corte dell' Cavallo near
the Misericordia. "He lives comfortably in his quiet house," writes
Vasari, who certainly knew Bordone in Venice, "working only at the
request of princes, or his friends, avoiding all rivalry and those vain
ambitions which do but disturb the repose of man, and seeking to avert
any ruffling of the serene tranquillity of his life, which he is
accustomed to preserve simple and upright."

Many of his pictures show an intense love of country solitudes. His
poetic backgrounds, lonely mountains, leafy woods, and sparkling water
are in curious contrast to the sumptuous groups in the foreground.

His "Three Heads," in the Brera, is a superb piece of painting and
an interesting characterisation. The woman is ripe, sensual, and
calculating, feeling with her fingers for the gold chain, a mere
golden-fleshed, rose-flushed hireling, solid and prosaic. The
go-between is dimly seen in the background, but the face of the suitor
is a strange, ironic study: past youth, worn, joyless, and bitter,
taking his pleasure mechanically and with cynical detachment. The "Storm
calmed by S. Mark" (Academy) was, in Mr. Berenson's opinion, begun by
Giorgione.

Rich, brilliant, and essentially Venetian as is the work of these
two painters, it does not reach the highest level. It falls short of
grandeur, and has that worldly tone that borders on vulgarity. As we
study it we feel that it marks the point to which