“Great George”

Giorgione - Adoration of the Shepherds - 1505-10 – Venice - Oil on canvas - National Gallery of Art, Washington (click photo for larger image)Italian painter (real name Giorgio Barbarelli or Giorgio da Castelfranco), who 'from his stature and the greatness of his mind was afterwards known as Giorgione (c. 1477-1510) [great George]' (Vasari). He was ranked by Vasari with Leonardo da Vinci as one of the founders of modern painting. He was the first exponent in Venice of the small picture in oils, intended for private collectors rather than for churches, and frequently mysterious and evocative in subject. Giorgione's achievement in transforming the character of Venetian painting has always seemed the more remarkable in a life, terminated by the plague of 1510, that was even shorter than Raphael's.