Giorgione renaissance artist biography

Born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, called Giorgione, the artist was an influential Venetian painter of the High Renaissance. His birthplace of Castelfranco is a town outside of Venice, to where he traveled for his early studies.

It is there that he gained an apprenticeship with the prestigious painter Giovanni Bellini (1430 – 1516). Bellini helped form the prevalent style of the Venetian School of painting, of which Giorgione and other artists such as Titian (1485 – 1576) became known for.

One of his earliest pieces was the Castelfranco Madonna, or Madonna and Child Between Saint Francis and Saint Nicasius, painted between 1503 and 1504.

Giorgione renaissance artist biography wikipedia

The common depiction of Madonna and Child, called a Sacra conversazione, implores an unusual, almost regal throne upon which the Madonna sits. The altarpiece is in the Cathedral of Castelfranco in Veneto and was commissioned by Tuzio Costanzo, a Condottieri, or mercenary leader.

In the background of the piece is a lush landscape of