Talk:Giorgione

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[edit] Revisions

In editing thus far, I found that the paragraph-long sentence detailing his early commissions reads better as a series of sentences. The mention of different critics' assessments is, I believe, an outdated reference--sounds like much of the rest, as if copied from the century-old entry from Brittanica.JNW 15:19, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Self-portrait

I have re-installed the self-portrait for the following reasons: The attribution of works to Giorgione, with few exceptions, is controversial; even the Pastoral Concert, long a mainstay in his column, has lately been re-attributed to Titian. The assignment of this picture is no less uncertain. However, it was accepted as genuine by Vasari in 1528. Its quality, while abraded with age, and difficult to judge by this washed-out reproduction, is high. And the precociousness of concept and ambiguity of meaning are consistent with Giorgione's work--to posit that he would have been the first artist in Venice to create a painted self-portrait would not be giving him too much credit. Finally, there was no supporting rationale for reverting the picture. If solid recent evidence can be cited to the effect that the picture is now widely discredited, then I will stand happily corrected, and please re-revert. JNW 02:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Please provide academic sources that this painting is a self-portrait and that it is the same painting as mentioned by Vasari. A museum website is not an academic source. As best I know, Vasari mentions three self-portraits by Giorgione. His attributions may be well doubted, as "Bocchini tells us the story of how he and Vecchia were once shown a self-portrait of Giorgione, which Vecchia laughingly confessed to having painted himself thrity-two years earlier" (Mary Jane Harris, "Continuity, Innovation, and Connoisseurship"). Nevertheless, Vasari tells us the following:

One of these heads [in the possession of Patriarch Grimani], in which the hair is depicted falling to the shoulders, as was the fashion in those days, is said to be Giorgione's self-portrait. The portrait represents David, who is depicted with wonderful vigour and realism. His breast is protected by armour as is the arm with which he holds the severed head of Goliath".

I assume the Brunswick picture is a severely truncated relic of the subject. Gloria Fossi adds that, if the Brunswick painting is indeed a self-portrait, it indicates the painter's Jewish ethnicity. I also vaguely recall that this artwork was imitated by Samuel Beckett in several of his works, but this needs substantiating. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the literature identifies this as the cropped version of a work which served as the model for a 1650 engraving by Wenzel Hollar (Hollar's engraving confirms this with a written inscription), and which included the head of Goliath. My mistake on the Vasari date; " The portrait can be identified as the work by Giorgione that Vasari saw in Venice in the collection of Giovanni Grimani, 'reported to be his own portrait' (1568). It was mentioned earlier in an inventory of the Marino Grimani collection, compiled in 1528, indicated as a 'portrait of Giorgione by his hand, depicting the David and Goliath' (Paschini. 1926-7), but there is no certain proof that the painting now in Braunschweig can be identified as this work (Terisio Pignatti, Filippo Pedrocco, "Giorgione")." The authors go on to doubt the work's authenticity, based on 'solidity of brushstroke that is unlike Giorgione's more measured stroke', and classify it as a copy of a lost original--I find it a little unusual to revoke an attribution from a master because the brushwork is too confident, and am skeptical of questioning it on those grounds. Nevertheless, they do note that Hornig (1987), Luco (1995), and Anderson (1996), restored attribution to Giorgione.

None of this is conclusive (nor do I suspect it ever will be), and it seems that some of the hesitance to attribute the picture to Giorgione is based on its condition, and that it does not fit easily into some scholars' previous chronologies (Jaynie Anderson, "Giorgione"--she finds the provenance credible, and also assigns the picture to Giorgione). It is my misfortune not to have immediate access to more recent research, which might shed newer light; these sources date from 1999 and 1997, respectively. I am now curious to see if subsequent scholarship has shifted much. Until then, I think the revised credit you have proposed is a satisfactory compromise, and, incidentally, the formatting is an improvement. I also wonder how the subject's ethnicity can be deduced from the portrait--was Fossi expansive on this? This is all a bit windy, but as I said already, it is interesting. JNW 19:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I just found something from Fossi ("Italian Art", 2000), in which she makes reference to the possibility that Giorgione was Jewish, and that his self-portrait as David can be seen as supporting this interpretation. Of course, in so doing, she accepts the traditional attribution of the painting as a self-portrait by the artist. JNW 05:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

As for the Beckett reference: I found a French article online which maintains that the writer went to Brunswick in 1936, saw this painting, and was haunted by the image; ten years later the memory and attendant anxiety recurred while he was writing a story. JNW 12:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)