Giorgione, pseudonym of Giorgio da Castelfranco, was born in Castelfranco Veneto between 1477 and 1478 and died in Venice in 1510. He is one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of art: the only reliable news about his life comes from Vasari who recognizes Giorgione as a pupil of Giovanni Bellini in Venice.
Unknown is, however, the name of his first Master but in all likelihood we can assume he was a painter of his hometown or of the Treviso area; in the first part of his formation, we find painters whom he approached in the capital.
Here, he relies on Vincenzo Catena’s Workshop, from which he assimilates the technique of Bellini; Leonardo da Vinci’s, however, he learns from a group of Lombard painters present in the lagoon; he also has the opportunity to see the masterpieces of Hieronymus Bosch and those of Albrecht Dürer.
Even his body of work is inconspicuous, since no autographed pieces have come up. Among the works we are sure of, there is the Madonna of Castelfranco, painted around 1505, the Canvas of the Three Philosophers as well as his most famous piece, that shows his path towards Venetian Tonalism: the Storm.
The artist, completely excluded from ecclesiastical assignments, devotes himself to painting for private customers and thus to the creation of profane paintings and therefore of difficult interpretation.
However he obtained two public assignments: an enormous painting for the Sala dell’Udienza in the Palazzo Ducale dating back to 1507/1508 and the Frescoes on the facade of Fondaco dei Tedeschi made in 1508 from which today only a fragment of a naked female has survived, and is found in the galleries of the Academy.
With Giorgione, the stylistic assumptions of Bellini, come to full maturity: the artist, in fact, succeeds in overcoming the Gothic influences of the Master through a meticulous attention to detail, thanks to wonderful chiaroscuro effects, typical of the great Masters of the Florentine Renaissance such as Antonello da Messina and Piero della Francesca.