Giorgione was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are firmly attributed to him. The uncertainty surrounding the identity and meaning of his work has made Giorgione one of the most mysterious figures in European art.
A possible self-portrait, perhaps as David
Laura (1506), Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria
Sleeping Venus (c. 1510), Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany
The Tempest (c. 1508), Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, Italy
Venetian painting was a major force in Italian Renaissance painting and beyond. Beginning with the work of Giovanni Bellini and his brother Gentile Bellini and their workshops, the major artists of the Venetian school included Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto (1518–1594), Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) and Jacopo Bassano (1510–1592) and his sons. Considered to give primacy to colour over line, the tradition of the Venetian school contrasted with the Mannerism prevalent in the rest of Italy. The Venetian style exerted great influence upon the subsequent development of Western painting.
Titian, Salome with the Head of John the Baptist c. 1515; this religious work also functions as an idealized portrait of a beauty, a Venetian genre developed by Titian, supposedly often using Venetian courtesans as models.
Canaletto, The Entrance to the Grand Canal, c. 1730, a typical veduta
Giovanni Bellini, San Zaccaria Altarpiece, 1505, a late work, San Zaccaria, Venice
Paolo Veneziano, polyptych altarpiece with Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1350
