Giorgione [ハードカバー]

Giorgione saw the world in a way that no other painter did before... and he changed the course of art. This high quality volume of his work shows us why Giorgione is a legend of vital importance. The publishers avoided the mistakes that so many have in the past. Finally, we are given high quality imagery that is instructive and sensual instead of merely an inventory.

Giorgione has always been an artist who exists today in a haze of half-myths. Very few details are known about him, and some of the descriptions about his life are contradictory. The Renaissance biographer Vasari had kind respect for the man,(even if his technique was so soft compared with the painters of Florence) telling us that he was a lover of women and a social, happy fellow, whose realism in his portraits was legendary even in his time. Other accounts tell us he was brooding, introverted and isolated. In any case, Giorgione died young and his students, such as Titian, worked on his unfinished paintings and then began to emulate him. Thus, the authentic authorship of many of his works is blurred. Add to that the fact that only a handful of his known paintings survive today, (and nearly all of them have at some point been contested as his own) we are left with the impression that he, like his famed masterpiece "The Tempest" is a mysterious, poetic enigma.

Art historians are quick to define him as the creator of a truly unique language of oil painting, a language that allows an optically nuanced sense of realism to exist on canvas, free from harsh outlines, free in fact from defined contours and edges of any kind...
Although Leonardo Da Vinci created "Sfumato," (soft smoky edges), it was Giorgione who applied it to a more everyday scenes, making the effect less ethereal, and more of the real world. Giorgione inspired his student, the young Titian, to become arguably the greatest of all painters, in that titian ran with Giorgione's approach, developed it, and in turn went on to not only conquer Venetian painting, but to also provide the inspiration for Tintoretto, Veronese, El Greco, Rubens, Rembrandt and Velasquez. Since Velazquez' soft, optical approach then went on to inspire the French Impressionists like Manet and International painters like Sargent, Sorolla and Zorn, we can see how the spark of Giorgione spread like a great fire across schools and boundaries. It is startling to comprehend that Giorgione was responsible for, and was the originator of, a tradition in SEEING that carried on in some form for over 500 years.

In essence, that puts Giorgione as the Grand patron, the great Father of many of the masters of oil painting. Unfortunately, few books are able to really show this to readers.

This volume exists as the finest book on Giorgione's paintings. The primary reason is that the printing quality is so high, and the plates include generous close-up details of the master's work. Full-sized heads, hands and background elements bring us centimeters from his work. The delicate tonal transitions, lost-and-found edges and clear, realistic color all explain, lavishly, how Giorgione breathed life and air into his scenes. Giorgione was revolutionary. Through his observations and choices not only was "The Venetian Style" created, but, as I have noted, "optical realism" was launched. This book is an invaluable guide to better understanding the poetic, atmospheric language that Giorgione demonstrated.

Of all the illustrated artbooks of which I'm aware since my World-War-II childhood days, I believe that this book is one of the most sumptuous, elaborate, and marvelous of them all, and so it's a prize addition to my large collection. The quality of the color images is astounding, and it's unusual to obtain so many full-page details on portions of an artist's works. That's a particularly invaluable feature for the art lover who usually will be unable to see the originals, or who, having seen them, wants constant reminders to respark his or her memory. I'm fortunate in that regard to have visited the Uffizzi 39 years ago, which is perhaps, in my opinion, one of the very greatest of all art museums in the world, and to have seen three works by that artist, who I believe to be one of the greatest in the history of painting, and so this book will help me to experience anew that euphoric time.

My thanks to 24 ORE Cultura for publishing this groundbreaking treasure.

There are many mysteries in the history of art and artists but none as obscure as that of the life and works of Giorgione. A brief summary of the man and his life can be found in dictionaries: ' Giorgione (born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; c. 1477/8 - 1510[1]) was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance in Venice. Giorgione is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are acknowledged for certain to be his work. The resulting uncertainty about the identity and meaning of his art has made Giorgione one of the most mysterious figures in European painting.' But what fascination he retains is largely due to the influence he had on the other painters of his time as well as all of the history of art since his abrupt death from the plague in 1510. Those painters who fell under his influence include da Vinci, Titian, Sebastiano del Piombo, Palma il Vecchio, il Cariani, Giulio Campagnola and many others.

For what appears to be the first time, an author has been able to paste together all the myths, the scraps of his life and works, and the investigations and research into this man of mystery: that author is Enrico Dal Pozzolo whose many publications stem from his research and studies and teaching at the University of Verona and of Venice. Not only is he a brilliant scholar who manages to tell the story of Giorgione and his beginnings and subsequent influences, but he does this in such a readable manner that the book often reads like a very fine novel.

Add to this the fact that this luxurious, cloth slip-covered tome holds to the highest standards of color reproduction and gives us as much exposure to the works of Girogione as well as the works attributed to him, or work finished by his followers, and the result is a book of such beauty and luxury that it is bound to become the winner of awards. Pozzolo's writing coupled with the carefully researched scholarship of those who assisted him in preparing this book and the reproductions of the works of art that fill this volume would be impossible to better. The book is very much worth the price! Grady Harp, February 11