In the Age of Giorgione

The Sackler Wing of Galleries
12 March – 5 June 2016

2009-2016 Season supported by:
In March 2016, the Royal Academy of Arts will present In the Age of Giorgione, a focused survey of the
Venetian Renaissance during the first decade of the sixteenth century. The exhibition will shed new
light on this pivotal period, which laid the foundations for the Golden Age of Venetian painting. It will
bring together around 50 works from public institutions and private collections across Europe and the
United States, by celebrated artists such as Giorgione, Titian, Giovanni Bellini, Sebastiano del Piombo
and Lorenzo Lotto, while offering an opportunity to rediscover other less well known artists such as
Giovanni Cariani. The exhibition will also consider the influence of Albrecht Dürer who visited Venice in
1505 – 6.

By the beginning of the sixteenth century Giovanni Bellini had revolutionised Venetian painting,
favouring a new naturalism, yet it was the next generation, most notably Giorgione and Titian, who
became the protagonists of a new style. Giorgione emerged during the first decade of the sixteenth
century, greatly influencing and rapidly transforming the stylistic evolution of Venetian art. These
developments were advanced by the young Titian, who would soon become the leading artist in Venice.
Little is known about Giorgione’s life, yet the elusive and poetic quality of his work was so powerful that,
despite his early death in 1510, his legacy was profoundly felt in Venice and beyond. Giorgione worked
largely for a new type of patron, that of the cultured and sophisticated connoisseur. He proposed a new,
more poetic type of portraiture and created a serene bucolic world as a backdrop to both sacred and
profane subjects. Today, there are only a few works that can be attributed to Giorgione with certainty.
The exhibition will address the question of attribution, taking a closer look at many of the finest works
from the period.

The most important artist to emerge from Giorgione’s shadow was Titian, who became the preeminent
artist in Venice following Giorgione’s premature death. While Giovanni Bellini remained in high demand
for the commission of altarpieces, it was Titian who developed Giorgione’s soft and sensuous use of
colour on a larger scale. Titian’s life-long artistic experiments led to a new era that has since become
known as the century of Titian.

The exhibition will include key works by Giorgione and the young Titian, some of which have rarely
been seen in this country. One of the highlights of the exhibition will be Giorgione’s Portrait of a Man
(The San Diego Museum of Art). Known as the Terris Portrait, after the name of its former owner, the
Scottish coal merchant Alexander Terris, it is one of only two known paintings bearing a contemporary
inscription on the back of the panel identifying Giorgione as the artist. Displaying a technique similar to
Leonardo da Vinci’s famed sfumato, in which areas of colour are blended into one another without
perceptible transitions, the portrait epitomises what Giorgio Vasari praised as the ‘modern manner’.
Further highlights will include Giorgione’s Il Tramonto (The Sunset) (The National Gallery, London),
Titian’s Christ and the Adulteress (Glasgow Museums) and Titian’s Jacopo Pesaro Being Presented by
Pope Alexander VI to Saint Peter (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp). Also on display
will be works by Giovanni Bellini, Albrecht Dürer, Lorenzo Lotto, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni
Cariani, Giulio Campagnola and Tullio Lombardo, among others.

In the Age of Giorgione will be arranged in four sections: Portraits, Landscapes, Devotional Works and
Allegorical Portraits. These groupings will allow visitors to explore the idealised beauty, expressive
force and sensuous use of colour that became the hallmarks of Venetian Renaissance painting, whilst
rediscovering one of the most enigmatic and influential artists of the period.

Organisation
The exhibition has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts. It has been curated by Arturo
Galansino, former Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts and newly appointed Director of the Palazzo
Strozzi in Florence and Simone Facchinetti, Curator at the Museo Adriano Bernareggi in Bergamo, in
collaboration with Per Rumberg, Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts.

Catalogue
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with contributions from Arturo
Galansino, Director of the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence and Simone Facchinetti, Curator at the Museo
Adriano Bernareggi, Bergamo.

Dates and Opening Hours
Press View: Tuesday 8 March 2016, 10am – 2pm
Open to public: Saturday 12 March – Sunday 5 June 2016
10am – 6pm daily (last admission 5.30pm)
Late night opening: Fridays until 10pm (last admission 9.30pm)

Admission
£11.50 full price (£10 excluding Gift Aid donation); concessions available; children under 16 and
Friends of the RA go free.

Tickets
Tickets for In the Age of Giorgione are available daily at the RA or online at www.royalacademy.org.uk.
Group bookings: Groups of 10+ are asked to book in advance. Telephone 020 7300 8027 or email
adultgroups@royalacademy.org.uk.