“Thereupon the stupid painters and the vulgar herd who up to then had seen nothing but the cold and dead things of Giovanni Bellini, of Gentile, and of [Alvise] Vivarini (since Giorgione, working in oils, had not yet had any public work; and for the most part made no other works than half figures and portraits) which were without movement and without relief, spake great ill of that picture. Afterwards, as envy cooled, and opening their eyes a little to the truth, the people began to be amazed at the new manner discovered in Venice by Titian: and all the painters from then on strove to imitate it; but being off their own path, became confused. And surely it must seem a miracle that Titian, without having at that time seen the antiquities of Rome, which were the light of all the good painters, solely with that little spark, which he had discovered in the works of Giorgione, saw and perceived the idea of perfect painting.”
The general critical justness of this statement must condone its abundant overstatements and errors of fact.
Aurelio Luini on Titian’s Impressionism
“Aurelio Luini has excellently understood this art [of landscape] to whom it once happened that visiting Titian, and asking him his opinion about the background of trees, besides many reasons which he heard from him about making the foliage sparkle against the background, he saw one of his [Titian’s] wonderful landscapes which he had at home, which, having seen quietly, Aurelio thought a daubed up thing, but afterwards, having withdrawn to a distance, it seemed to him that the sun shone resplendently in it, making the paths retreat on this side and that; so that Aurelio had to say that he had never seen a rarer thing in the world in the way of landscapes.”
Lomazzo, Trattato, Milan, 1584, p. 474, 5.
On Belle Nature and the Antique
The Renaissance idea that Nature must be ennobled and corrected by the Antique is plainly formulated by Dolce, again under the name of Aretino, Dialogo, p. 190.
“One should then choose the most perfect form, imitating nature in part.... And partly one should imitate the beautiful marble and bronze figures of the ancient masters. Whereof who so shall taste and possess fully the marvellous perfection, will be able with certainty to correct many defects of nature, and make his pictures noteworthy and grateful to all. Inasmuch as the ancient things contain the entire perfection of art, and can be the exemplars of all beauty.”
This is one of the earliest full statements of the notion of belle nature, and of the antique as normative. The dogma persists with unabated rigor down to Sir Joshua Reynolds (see Illustration to Chapter VI, p. 316) and Jacques Louis David.