Italian 1476-1510 Giorgione Galleries For his home town of Castelfranco, Giorgione painted the Castelfranco Madonna, an altarpiece in sacra conversazione form ?? Madonna enthroned, with saints on either side forming an equilateral triangle. This gave the landscape background an importance which marks an innovation in Venetian art, and was quickly followed by his master Giovanni Bellini and others.Giorgione began to use the very refined chiaroscuro called sfumato ?? the delicate use of shades of color to depict light and perspective ?? around the same time as Leonardo. Whether Vasari is correct in saying he learnt it from Leonardo's works is unclear ?? he is always keen to ascribe all advances to Florentine sources. Leonardo's delicate color modulations result from the tiny disconnected spots of paint that he probably derived from manuscript illumination techniques and first brought into oil painting. These gave Giorgione's works the magical glow of light for which they are celebrated. Most entirely central and typical of all Giorgione's extant works is the Sleeping Venus now in Dresden, first recognized by Morelli, and now universally accepted, as being the same as the picture seen by Michiel and later by Ridolfi (his 17th century biographer) 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. The use of an external landscape to frame a nude is innovative; but in addition, to add to her mystery, she is shrouded in sleep, spirited away from accessibility to her conscious expression. It is recorded by Michiel that Giorgione 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 of Urbino and of many more by other painters of the school; but none of them attained the fame of the first exemplar. The same concept of idealized beauty is evoked in a virginally pensive Judith from the Hermitage Museum, a large painting which exhibits Giorgione's special qualities of color richness and landscape romance, while demonstrating that life and death are each other's companions rather than foes. Apart from the altarpiece and the frescoes, all Giorgione's surviving works are small paintings designed for the wealthy Venetian collector to keep in his home; most are under two foot (60 cm) in either dimension. This market had been emerging over the last half of the fifteenth century in Italy, and was much better established in the Netherlands, but Giorgione was the first major Italian painter to concentrate his work on it to such an extent ?? indeed soon after his death the size of such paintings began to increase with the prosperity and palaces of the patrons.  Related Paintings of Giorgione :. | The Three Philosophers dh | The Budapest Portrait of a Young Man | THe Judgment of Solomon | Detail of Judith | Judith dh |
Related Artists:
Francesco Giuseppe Casanova
(1727-1803) was an Italian painter and a younger brother of Giacomo Casanova. Francesco Casanova Battaglia di cavalleria (oil on canvas, Louvre, Paris)Born in London, he trained in Venice under Francesco Guardi, then was a pupil of Francesco Simonini, a battle painter who took Borgognone as his model. Besides battle-pieces Casanova painted landscapes with figures and cattle, as well as pastoral subjects. He arrived in Paris in 1751, and went to Dresden in the following year, where he remained until 1757, spending his time in copying the finest battle-pieces of the famous Electoral Gallery. On his return to Paris he studied for a time under Charles Parrocel, and was received into the Academy in 1763. He exhibited at the Salon at intervals from that year till 1783, when he again quit France, going to Vienna, where he resided during the remainder of his life. Philip James de Loutherbourg was his pupil for a time.
marcus larson
Simon Marcus Larson, född 5 januari 1825, Lilla Örsätter, Åtvidaberg, död 25 januari 1864 i London, var en svensk målare. Han tillhörde Dusseldorfskolan och skildrade naturens krafter på ett romantiskt och dramatiskt sätt. Larson hade en kort karriär och avled vid 39 års ålder, men ses ändå som en av Sveriges främsta 1800-talskonstnärer. 1856 var Larson i Dusseldorf och på julafton skissade han på ett solnedgångsmotiv vid den bohuslänska kusten, men Larson drömde om att måla en större tavla, hans atelje var alltför trång. Så en dag när han satt i stans populäraste caf?? och drack öl fick han id??n att han skulle måla i caf??lokalen. Sagt och gjort så hyrde han lokalen i 14 dagar. Duken han spände upp var 10-12 fot hög och 18 fot bred. Efter 10 dagar var tavlan klar. Tavlan ställdes ut på akademien och det byggdes en utsiktsramp för att åskådarna skulle få en överblick över tavlan, priset var 5 Silbergroschen per titt och det annonserades att intäkterna skulle gå till välgörande ändamål, vilket fick stort uppseende, särskilt bland övriga konstnärer, utställningen varade mellan 25 jan. och 15 feb. 1857 Tavlan ställdes också ut bland annat i Köln och Berlin sedan till Salon Carre i Paris där den hyllades. Därefter ställdes den också ut i Stockholm där Larson tänkte skänka tavlan till staten tillsammans med köpet av Vattenfall i Småland, men då Larson på hösten inte fick sälja nämnda tavla tog han ned den stora tavlan och tog den med sig när han lämnade Sverige och fortsatte sina resor, han visade den under några år, sista gången någon skrivit om tavlan var 1863, Efter Larsons död i London försvann tavlan.
Horace Vernet
French Academic Painter, 1789-1863, Painter, son of Carle Vernet. He was born in his father's lodgings at the Palais du Louvre, where his grandfather Joseph Vernet also lived; his maternal grandfather was Jean-Michel Moreau. To these antecedents and influences are ascribed the supreme ease of his public career, his almost incredible facility and his fecundity. His early training in his father's studio was supplemented by formal academic training with Franeois-Andre Vincent until 1810, when he competed unsuccessfully for the Prix de Rome. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1812. In 1814 Vernet received the Legion d'honneur for the part he played in the defence of Paris, which he commemorated in the Clichy Gate: The Defence of Paris, 30 March 1814