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Giorgione (c. 1477 in Castelfranco, Italy - 1510
in Venice, Italy) is the familiar name of Giorgio
Barbarelli da Castelfranco, a Venice| Venetian
artist who was one of the most important figures
in the Venetian High Renaissance. Giorgione is
known for the elusive poetic quality of his work,
and for the fact only a very few (around six)
paintings are known for certain to be his work. At
his sudden death from plague he probably left some
works unfinished, which may have  been completed
by his colleagues Titian or Sebastiano del Piombo.
The resulting uncertainty about the identity and
meaning of his art has made Giorgione one of the
most mysterious figure in Western painting.

Giorgione came from the small town of Castelfranco
Veneto, outside of Venice. His name is sometimes
spelled Zorzo. The variant 'Giorgione' or 'Zorzon'
means 'big George'. 

While still in Castelfranco he painted the
Castelfranco Madonna, a fairly conventional image
of the Madonna (art)|Madonna enthroned, with
saints on either side (a sacra conversazione
painting). However, it marks a departure in
Venetian art, with its curiously introverted
saints and its delicate color modulations. This is
painted with the tiny disconnected spots of color
that Giorgione brought into oil painting, derived
from Illuminated manuscript| manuscript
illumination techniques. These gave Giorgione's
works the 'magical' glow of light for which they
were famous.

However it is works such as the Three Philosophers
and The Tempest (painting)|The Tempest that are
most famous. The meaning of these paintings is
mysterious, though art historians have attempted
to ascribe conventional subjects to them, they
remain strange. The first depicts three figures
near a dark empty cave. There seem to be
suggestions of Plato's allegory of the
cave|Plato's cave and of the three Magi, but it
remains unclear. The same is true of The Tempest 
in which a soldier on one side of a stream and a
breast-feeding woman on the other side seem to be
awaiting a storm.  X-ray examinations of this
image show that the soldier to the left was a
seated female nude in the earlier stages of the
painting.


His portraits were the first to be painted in the
"modern manner", and are full of dignity, truth of
characterization, simplicity, and a silvery
quality unsurpassed even by Velazquez. The
precocious and versatile young man was the first
to paint landscapes with figures, the first to
paint genre — movable pictures in their own
frames with no devotional, allegorical, or
historical purpose — and the first whose colours
possessed that ardent, glowing, and melting
intensity which was so soon to typify the work of
all the Venetian School. Giorgione was the first
to discard detail and substitute breadth and
boldness in the treatment of nature and
architecture; and he was the first to recognize
that the painter's chief aim is decorative effect.
He never subordinated line and colour to
architecture, nor an artistic effect to a
sentimental presentation.  The most famous of his
portraits, Laura (1506) is his only signed and
dated work known to exist.

His life was described in Giorgio Vasari's Vite.

==See also==
* List of painters
* List of Italian painters
* List of famous Italians

==Sources==
* Encyclopedia of Artists, volume 2, edited by
William H.T. Vaughan, ISBN 0-19-521572-9, 2000

	Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Giorgione (c. 1477 in Castelfranco, Italy - 1510
in Venice, Italy) is the familiar name of Giorgio
Barbarelli da Castelfranco, a Venice| Venetian
artist who was one of the most important figures
in the Venetian High Renaissance. Giorgione is
known for the elusive poetic quality of his work,
and for the fact only a very few (around six)
paintings are known for certain to be his work. At
his sudden death from plague he probably left some
works unfinished, which may have  been completed
by his colleagues Titian or Sebastiano del Piombo.
The resulting uncertainty about the identity and
meaning of his art has made Giorgione one of the
most mysterious figure in Western painting.

Giorgione came from the small town of Castelfranco
Veneto, outside of Venice. His name is sometimes
spelled Zorzo. The variant 'Giorgione' or 'Zorzon'
means 'big George'. 

While still in Castelfranco he painted the
Castelfranco Madonna, a fairly conventional image
of the Madonna (art)|Madonna enthroned, with
saints on either side (a sacra conversazione
painting). However, it marks a departure in
Venetian art, with its curiously introverted
saints and its delicate color modulations. This is
painted with the tiny disconnected spots of color
that Giorgione brought into oil painting, derived
from Illuminated manuscript| manuscript
illumination techniques. These gave Giorgione's
works the 'magical' glow of light for which they
were famous.

However it is works such as the Three Philosophers
and The Tempest (painting)|The Tempest that are
most famous. The meaning of these paintings is
mysterious, though art historians have attempted
to ascribe conventional subjects to them, they
remain strange. The first depicts three figures
near a dark empty cave. There seem to be
suggestions of Plato's allegory of the
cave|Plato's cave and of the three Magi, but it
remains unclear. The same is true of The Tempest 
in which a soldier on one side of a stream and a
breast-feeding woman on the other side seem to be
awaiting a storm.  X-ray examinations of this
image show that the soldier to the left was a
seated female nude in the earlier stages of the
painting.


His portraits were the first to be painted in the
"modern manner", and are full of dignity, truth of
characterization, simplicity, and a silvery
quality unsurpassed even by Velazquez. The
precocious and versatile young man was the first
to paint landscapes with figures, the first to
paint genre — movable pictures in their own
frames with no devotional, allegorical, or
historical purpose — and the first whose colours
possessed that ardent, glowing, and melting
intensity which was so soon to typify the work of
all the Venetian School. Giorgione was the first
to discard detail and substitute breadth and
boldness in the treatment of nature and
architecture; and he was the first to recognize
that the painter's chief aim is decorative effect.
He never subordinated line and colour to
architecture, nor an artistic effect to a
sentimental presentation.  The most famous of his
portraits, Laura (1506) is his only signed and
dated work known to exist.

His life was described in Giorgio Vasari's Vite.

==See also==
* List of painters
* List of Italian painters
* List of famous Italians

==Sources==
* Encyclopedia of Artists, volume 2, edited by
William H.T. Vaughan, ISBN 0-19-521572-9, 2000