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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: GEO-GNU |
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GIORGIONE (1477-1510) , Italian painter, was born at Castelfranco in 1477. In contemporary documents he is always called (according to the Venetian manner of pronunciation and spelling) Zorzi, Zorzo or Zorzon of Castelfranco. A tradition, having its origin in the 17th century, represented him as the natural son of some member of the great local family of the Barbarelli, by a peasant girl of the neighbouring village
catalogues under the name of Giorgio Barbarelli or Barbarella. exercised, and continue to exercise, no less a spell on posterity. This tradition has, however, on close examination been proved But to identify and define, among the relics of his age and school, baseless. - On the other hand mention has been found in a precisely what that work is, and to distinguish it from the contemporary document of an earlier Zorzon, a native of kindred work of other men whom his influence inspired, is a Vedelago, living in Castelfranco in 146o. Vasari, who wrote very difficult matter. There are inclusive critics who still before the Barbarella legend had sprung up, says that Giorgione claim for Giorgione nearly every painting of the time that at was of very humble origin. It seems probable that he was all resembles his manner, and there are exclusive critics who pare simply the son or grandson of the afore-mentioned Zorzon the down to some ten or a dozen the list
was a mere piece of family vanity, very likely suggested by the To name first those which are either certain or command analogous case of Leonardo da Vinci; and that, this claim once the most general acceptance, placing them in something like put abroad, the peasant-mother of Vedelago was invented on an approximate and probable order of date. In the Uffizi at the ground of some dim knowledge that his real progenitors Florence are two companion pieces of the " Trial of Moses " came from that village
Of the facts of his life we are almost as meagrely informed as better preserved of the two, which pass, no doubt justly, as of the circumstances of his birth. The little city, or large typical works of Giorgione's youth, and exhibit, though not yet fortified village, for it is scarcely more, of Castelfranco in the ripely, his special qualities of colour-richness and landscape Trevisan stands in the midst of a rich and broken plain at some romance, the peculiar facial types of his predilection, with the distance from the last spurs of the `Venetian Alps. From the pure form of forehead, fine oval of cheek, and somewhat close-set natural surroundings of Giorgione's childhood was no doubt eyes and eyebrows, and the intensity of that still and brooding derived his ideal of pastoral
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All accounts agree in representing Giorgione as a personage Moretto, &c., until its kindred with the unquestioned work of of distinguished and romantic charm, a great lover, a great Giorgione was in late years firmly established. The great musician, made to enjoy in life and to express in art to the Castelfranco altarpiece, still, in spite of many restorations, uttermost the delight, the splendour, the sensuous and imaginative one of the most classically pure and radiantly impressive works grace and fulness, not untinged with poetic melancholy, of the of Renaissance painting, may be taken as closing the earlier Venetian existence of his time. They represent him further as phase of the young master's work (1504). It shows the Virgin having made in Venetian painting an advance analogous to that loftily enthroned on a plain, sparely draped stone structure with made in Tuscan painting by Leonardo more than twenty years St Francis and a warrior saint (St Liberale) standing
parapet behind them, and a beautiful landscape of the and the full mastery of its means. He also introduced a new master's usual type seen above it. Nearly akin to this master-range of subjects. Besides altarpieces and portraits he painted piece, not in shape or composition but by the type of the Virgin pictures that told no story, whether biblical or classical, or if and the very Bellinesque St Francis, is the altarpiece of the they professed to tell such, neglected the action and simply Madonna with St Francis and St Roch at Madrid. Of the embodied in form and colour moods of lyrical or romantic master's fully ripened time is the fine and again enigmatical feeling, much as a musician might embody them in sounds. picture formerly in the house of Taddeo Contarini
Sebastian del Piombo, the elder Palma, Cariani and the two eighth Aeneid. The portrait of a knight of Malta in the Uffizi at Campagnolas, and not a little even on seniors of long- standing
fame such as Giovanni Bellini. His name and work have the earlier example at Berlin, and may be taken to be of the master's middle time. Most entirely central and typical of all Giorgione's extant works is the Sleeping Venus at Dresden, first recognized by Morelli, and now universally accepted, as being the same as the picture seen by the Anonimo and later by Ridolfi in the Casa Marcello at Venice. An exquisitely pure and severe rhythm of line and contour chastens the sensuous richness of the presentment: the sweep of white drapery on which the goddess lies, and of glowing landscape that fills the space behind her, most harmoniously frame her divinity. It is recorded that the master left this piece unfinished and that the landscape, with a Cupid which subsequent restoration has removed, were completed after his death by Titian. The picture is the prototype of Titian's own Venus at the Uffizi and of many more by other painters of the school; but none of them attained the quality of the first exemplar. Of such small scenes of mixed classical mythology and landscape as early writers attribute in considerable number to Giorgione, there have survived at least two which bear strong evidences of his handiwork, though the action is in both of unwonted liveliness, namely the Apollo and Daphne of the Seminario at Venice and the Orpheus and Eurydice of Bergamo. The portrait of Antonio Grocardo at Budapest represents his fullest and most penetrating power in that branch of art. In his last years the purity and relative slenderness of form which mark his earlier female nudes, including the Dresden Venus, gave way to ideals of ampler mould, more nearly approaching those of Titian and his successors in Venetian art; as is proved by those last remaining fragments of the frescoes on the Grand Canal front of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi which were seen and engraved by Zanetti in 1760, but have now totally disappeared. Such change of ideal is apparent enough in the famous " Concert " or " Pastoral
We pass now to pictures for which some affirm and others deny the right to bear Giorgione's name. As youthful in style as the two early pictures in the Uffizi, and closely allied to them in feeling, though less so in colour, is an unexplained subject in the National Gallery, sometimes called for want of a better title the " Golden Age "; this is officially and by many critics given only to the "school of " Giorgione, but may not unreasonably be claimed for his own work (No.1173). There is also in England a group of three paintings which are certainly by one hand, and that a hand very closely related to Giorgione if not actually his own, namely the small oblong " Adoration of the Magi " in the National Gallery (No. 1160), the " Adoration of the Shepherds " belonging to Lord Allendale (with its somewhat inferior but still attractive replica at Vienna), and the small " Holy Family " in the collection of Mr R. H. Benson. The type of the Madonna in all these three pieces is different from that customary with the master, but there seems no reason why he should not at some particular moment have changed his model. The sentiment and gestures of the figures, the cast of draperies, the technical handling, and especially, in Lord Allen-dale's picture, the romantic richness of the landscape, all incline us to accept the group as original
There are at least two famous single portraits as to which End of Article: GIORGIONE (1477-1510) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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