r liking
that mode of working, began to give to his pictures more softness and
greater relief, with a beautiful manner; nevertheless he used to set
himself before living and natural objects and counterfeit them as well
as he was able with colours, and paint them broadly with tints crude or
soft according as the life demanded, without doing any drawing, holding
it as certain that to paint with colours only, without the study of
drawing on paper, was the true and best method of working, and the true
design. For he did not perceive that for him who wishes to distribute
his compositions and accommodate his inventions well, it is necessary
that he should first put them down on paper in several different ways,
in order to see how the whole goes together, for the reason that the
idea is not able to see or imagine the inventions perfectly within
herself, if she does not reveal and demonstrate her conception to the
eyes of the body, that these may assist her to form a good judgment.
Besides which, it is necessary to give much study to the nude, if you
wish to comprehend it well, which you will never do, nor is it possible,
without having recourse to paper; and to keep always before you, while
you paint, persons naked or draped, is no small restraint, whereas, when
you have formed your hand by drawing on paper, you then come little by
little with greater ease to carry your conceptions into execution,
designing and painting together. And so, gaining practice in art, you
make both manner and judgment perfect, doing away with the labour and
effort wherewith those pictures were executed of which we have spoken
above, not to mention that by drawing on paper, you come to fill the
mind with beautiful conceptions, and learn to counterfeit all the
objects of nature by memory, without having to keep them always before
you or being obliged to conceal beneath the glamour of colouring the
painful fruits of your ignorance of design, in the manner that was
followed for many years by the Venetian painters, Giorgione, Palma,
Pordenone, and others, who never saw Rome or any other works of absolute
perfection.

[Illustration: ARIOSTO

(_After the painting by =Tiziano=. London: National Gallery, No.
1944_)

_Mansell_]

Tiziano, then, having seen the method and manner of Giorgione,
abandoned the manner of Gian Bellini, although he had been accustomed
to it for a long time, and attached himself to that of Giorgione;
coming in a short time to imi