The Three Philosophers

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Portrait of a Young Man

Giorgione, c. 1505-1509

Oil on canvas

123 × 144 cm

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

The Three Philosophers is an oil on canvas painting by the Italian Early Renaissance artist Giorgione, who finished it in around 1505. The work was commissioned by the Venetian noble Taddeo Contarini.

The current name of the work derives from a writing of Marcantonio Michiel, who saw it in a Venetian villa. However, the three figures portrayed are clearly allegorical: they are an old bearded man, an Arab and a sitting young man, in a nature landscape. In the background is a village with some mountains, the latter marked by a blue area whose meaning is unknown. The young man is observing a cave on the left of the scene, and apparently measuring it with some instruments.

The general meaning of the work has not been clearly defined by the scholars. According to a famous interpretation, the three men would not be the three Magi facing Jesus' grotto, but they would represent the three stages of the human thought: in the Renaissance (the young man), in the Arabian (the man with turban) and the Middle Age one (the old man). According to other, they should instead be an allegory of three ages of man. Other hypothesis connect it to astrological and alchemical theories, being Contarini a scholar of those matters.