Titian
Christ and the Adulteress
Oil on canvas, 139.2 x 181.7 cm.
Glasgow Life (Glasgow Museums) on behalf of Glasgow City Council
Archibald McLellan Collection, purchased 1856
Photo © CSG CIC Glasgow Museum Collections;
Royal Academy presents ‘In the Age of Giorgione’ The Royal Academy of Arts presents ‘In the Age of Giorgione’, a focused survey of the Venetian Renaissance during the first decade of the sixteenth century. 12 March – 5 June 2016.]]>
Source: Royal Academy of Arts
The exhibition sheds new light on this pivotal period, which laid the foundations for the Golden Age of Venetian painting. It brings together around 50 works from public institutions and private collections across Europe and the United States, by celebrated artists such as Giorgione, Titian, Giovanni Bellini, Sebastiano del Piombo and Lorenzo Lotto, while offering an opportunity to rediscover other less well known artists such as Giovanni Cariani. The exhibition also considers the influence of Albrecht Dürer who visited Venice in 1505–6.
By the beginning of the sixteenth century Giovanni Bellini had revolutionised Venetian painting, favouring a new naturalism, yet it was the next generation, most notably Giorgione and Titian, who became the protagonists of a new style. Giorgione emerged during the first decade of the sixteenth century, greatly influencing and rapidly transforming the stylistic evolution of Venetian art. These developments were advanced by the young Titian, who would soon become the leading artist in Venice.
Little is known about Giorgione’s life, yet the elusive and poetic quality of his work was so powerful that, despite his early death in 1510, his legacy was profoundly felt in Venice and beyond. Giorgione worked largely for a new type of patron, that of the cultured and sophisticated connoisseur. He proposed a new, more poetic type of portraiture and created a serene bucolic world as a backdrop to both sacred and profane subjects. Today, there are only a few works that can be attributed to Giorgione with certainty. The exhibition will address the question of attribution, taking a closer look at many of the finest works from the period.
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