" Now
the statement that Titian began to imitate Giorgione at the age of
eighteen is inconsistent with Vasari's own words of a few paragraphs
previously: "About the year 1507, Giorgione da Castel Franco, not being
satisfied with that mode of proceeding (i.e. 'the dry, hard, laboured
manner of Gian Bellino, which Titian also acquired'), began to give to
his works an unwonted softness and relief, painting them in a very
beautiful manner.... Having seen the manner of Giorgione, Titian now
devoted himself to this purpose," etc. In 1507 Titian was thirty years
old,[86] not eighteen, so that both statements cannot be correct. Now it
is highly improbable that Titian had already discarded the manner of
Bellini as early as 1495, at the age of eighteen, and had so identified
himself with Giorgione that their work was indistinguishable.
Everything, on the contrary, points to Titian's evolution being anything
but rapid; in fact, so far as records go, there is no mention of his
name until he painted the facade of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi in company
with Giorgione in 1507. It is infinitely more probable that Vasari's
first statement is the more reliable--viz. that Titian began to adopt
Giorgione's manner about the year 1507, and it follows, therefore, that
the portrait of the gentleman of the Barberigo family, if by Titian,
dates from this time, and not 1495.
[Illustration: _Dixon photo. Collection of the Earl of Darnley, Cobham
Hall_
PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN]
Now there is a picture in the Earl of Darnley's Collection at Cobham
Hall which answers pretty closely to Vasari's description.
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