Giorgione, according to Vasari's Life of Giorgione, was a revolutionary, the first to use the maniera moderna in Venice, and someone who had the reputation of surpassing Bellini ( Vasari, Le Vite, Testo IV.41). In the Preface to the Third Part of the Lives, Vasari mentions him alongside Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolommeo, and Raphael. Giorgione 'obtained a beautiful gradation of colour in his pictures, and gave a sublime movement to his works by means of a certain darkness of shadow' ( Vasari, Le Vite, Testo IV.8). Titian, according to Vasari, decided to follow this style and he too abandoned the example of Bellini 'to give his style more softness and greater relief' ( Vasari, Le Vite, Testo VI.155). Vasari in his Life of Titian suggests that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the work of Titian from that of Giorgione, and that has remained a problem, as much for art historians now as for Ruskin (See Ruskin's knowledge of Giorgione's work).
However, according to Vasari, Le Vite, IV.42 Giorgione had studied the work of Leonardo, and had studied drawing. So, Vasari, on the basis of his views about the distinction between the Florentine and Venetian schools, singled out Giorgione and not Titian for mention in the Preface to Part Three of the Lives. Titian 'surpassed Giorgione greatly' but Titian's failure on 'design / disegno' meant that he could not achieve the greatness of Michelangelo and the Florentines. Titian was 'firmly convinced that painting alone with its colours, and without any other preliminary study of designs on paper, was the truest and best method of working and the true art of design.