(Giorgio Barbarelli) (c. 1475-1510) Italian Renaissance painter. He was active in Venice, and was probably trained by Giovanni Bellini. His work greatly influenced Titian and other Venetian painters. His subjects are imbued with a sense of mystery and treated with a soft technique, reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s later works, as in The Tempest 1504 (Accademia, Venice). He created the Renaissance poetic landscape, with rich colors and a sense of intimacy; an example is the Sleeping Venus, about 1510 (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), a work which may have been completed by Titian.
Giorgio Barbarelli, “il maistro Zorzi da Castelfranco”, called Giorgione after his death, seems to have been the pupil of Giovanni Bellini at Venice, together with Titian, and to have achieved early success there. In 1500, at the age of 23, he was chosen to paint portraits of the Doge Agostino Barberigo and the condottiere Consalvo Ferrante. He decorated the façades of several Venetian palaces, working with Titian on that of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, when it was rebuilt 1504. He is described by Vasari as a person of social charm, a musician and a romantic lover. Vasari speaks of Sebastiano del Piombo and Titian as his “disciples”, and it is supposed that the Venus (Dresden), most probably one of Giorgione’s last works, was finished by Titian, though the precise relation of their art is still a matter of debate. Giorgione died of the plague 1510.
Four pictures are generally accepted as certainly his: the Castelfranco altarpiece, the Three Philosophers (Vienna), the Portrait of a Lady (Vienna) and The Tempest (or Storm) (Venice, Accademia). To these are added with probability the Judith (Leningrad), Portrait of a Young Man (Berlin), Venus (Dresden), Madonna with Saints (Prado), Christ and the Adulteress (Glasgow), the Judgment of Solomon (Kingston Lacy), the Concert Champętre (Louvre) and Concert (Florence, Pitti). The Castelfranco altarpiece, in its symmetrical composition, is related to the work of Bellini and may well be early, but otherwise Giorgione may be regarded as an innovator in the development of the oil technique, in rich and warm color and in a type of painting independent of a particular position or function. He set the course of 16th-century Venetian painting as represented by Titian, Sebastiano, Lorenzo Lotto and Palma Vecchio. A poetical and enigmatic beauty seems personal to him, and is clearly apparent in The Tempest. The dreamlike quality of its impassive figures against the background of approaching electric storm has eternal fascination. A similar mysterious and contemplative beauty, with which the mature Titian’s sense of drama and movement may be contrasted, is to be found in the Concert Champętre of the Louvre.