Giorgio Giorgione
(1477/8 - 1510) |
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portraiture, altarpieces, mythological narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Giorgio Giorgione |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Castelfranco, Italy |
| Nationality: |
Italian |
| Birth: |
1477/8 |
| Death: |
1510 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
portraiture, altarpieces, mythological narratives |
| Medium: |
oil painting |
| Method: |
oil painting |
| Style: |
Italian Renaissance |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
Little is known about Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco Giorgione, yet his much-loved and admired works were renowned and influential throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Although Giorgione's career lasted no more than fifteen years due to his premature death from the plague in 1510, he can be named as the founding father of Venetian painting, having influenced Sebastiano del Piombo and Titian.
According to the sixteenth-century biographer Giorgio Vasari, Giorgione was a handsome man who had a genial personality and wore his hair fashionably long. Giorgione left his birthplace of Castelfranco Veneto at an early age to travel to Venice, where he trained in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini. From the start of his career, his artwork was innovative and he placed an unprecedented importance on the backgrounds of his paintings. Giorgione introduced landscape views into these backgrounds, a technique that was soon imitated by other Venetian artists. He frequently used the landscapes of the mainland around Venice as the pastoral setting for his religious or classical works.
Although its subject matter is still unclear, his most renowned work, The Tempest (1505-1510), best demonstrates his innovative approach to landscape painting. Here a sense of depth is seamlessly achieved by using cool blue hues at the back and warmer colors toward the front The whole image is bathed in a warm, golden light, unifying and integrating the different elements of the picture and creating a poetic mood that is today known as "Giorgionesque." His use of sfumato {the ability to soften or blur the edges of forms in order to avoid a sharp outline) is something that had previously been used by Leonardo da Vinci; however, how much Giorgione was aware of the master's work remains uncertain. |
Samples of Work
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