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 Sunset (Il Tramonto) sh | Portrait of a Man in Armor with His Page | Detail of Judith | Pope fleet department life Jacob wears Salol portrait | The San Diego Portrait of a Man |
Related Artists:
Elliott Charles Loring
born in Scipio, New York, in December 1812; died in Albany, NY., 25 Sept., 1868. died in Albany, NY., 25 Sept., 1868., American painter. Resolved to become an artist, he moved from Syracuse, NY, to New York City around 1830, bearing a letter of introduction to John Trumbull and reportedly receiving some brief instruction from him. Elliott spent six months in the studio of the genre painter John Quidor but returned to upstate New York, where he worked for several years as an itinerant portrait painter. Back in New York City by 1839, his art steadily improved; Henry Inman met him around 1844-5, whereupon he predicted: 'When I am gone that young man will take my place'. Elliott's portrait of Capt. John Ericsson (c. 1845; untraced) won praise in 1845 as 'the best American portrait since [Gilbert] Stuart', and from that date he was acknowledged as New York's leading portrait painter. His facility for capturing a vivid, characteristic likeness and his genial personality assured a constant stream of private patrons and public commissions. In 1867 it was reported that he had executed nearly 700 portraits.
HALS, Frans
Dutch painter (b. 1580, Antwerpen, d. 1666, Haarlem).
Johann Ludwig Aberli
Swiss, 1723-1786, Swiss painter, draughtsman and engraver. In 1741 he moved to Berne, where he took drawing lessons with Johann Grimm (1675-1747), whose school of drawing he took over in 1747. He visited the Bernese Oberland with Emanuel Handmann, Christian Georg Schetz (1718-91) and Friedrich Wilhelm Hirt (1721-72) in 1759 and in the same year travelled to Paris with Adrian Zingg (1734-86). This was his only trip abroad, but it determined him to work exclusively as a landscape painter. After nine months he returned to Berne, where his landscape views became popular, particularly with foreign travellers, enamoured of 'Nature' and keen to retain souvenirs of their travels. He was one of the first artists to portray the beauties of the Swiss countryside; his favourite subjects were the Aare Valley and views of Swiss lakes (e.g. View of Erlach on the Lake of Biel; Berne, Kstmus.). He invented a technique known as the 'Aberli style', which consisted of watercolour washes added to an image in which slightly smudged outlines were achieved through a combination of engraving and etching. The prints were made from drawings taken from nature and finished in the studio. His style was characterized by delicate execution, an intimate narrative approach, refined colours and the ability to convey a light and vaporous atmosphere. Aberli's success was such that he had to employ assistants and pupils to aid him in the coloration process; his pupils included Erasmus Ritter, Johann Jakob Biedermann, Marquard Wocher (1760-1830), Gabriel Ludwig Lory the elder (1763-1840) and Peter Birmann. From 1773 to 1775 Aberli also painted a series of costumes in response to tourist demand.