The Royal Academy of Arts has just opened “In the Age of Giorgione,” an exhibition dedicated to Venetian artists during the first decade of the sixteenth century, a pivotal period where revolutionary new ideas emerged laying the foundations for the Golden Age of Venetian painting.At the center of the exhibition is Giorgione’s La Vecchia (c. 1508‑10), a portrait of an old woman, believed to be the artist’s mother, caring a piece of paper with the words ‘col tempo’ (with time). On loan from Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia, this was a ground-breaking work of its time, a striking departure from the idealized women traditionally portrayed, and the work is an allegory of temporal transience, addressing ageing and the passage of time.Born in around 1477-78, Zorzi da Castelfranco, known as Giorgione, died young (in 1510) but was already celebrated, having been selected to paint portraits of the Doge Agostino Barbarigo and the condottiere Consalvo Ferrante. The artist had a very close working relationship with Titian — so close that scholars still argue over who painted what — and was enormously influential in his time. However, very few artworks directly attributed to him have survived.The small exhibition of 50 works presents paintings by his contemporaries such as Titian, Giovanni Bellini, Sebastiano del Piombo, and Lorenzo Lotto, and also considers the influence of Albrecht Dürer, as the German Renaissance artist stayed in Venice in 1506‑1507.In the Age of Giorgione runs through June 5, 2016.
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