Deeper Thoughts: Beyond the Allegory of Bellini, Giorgione and Titian

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery discussing the parallels between the work of late Bellini, Giorgione and early Titian and contemporary poetry.

Delivered by Salvator Settis, Archaeologist and art historian, this was the annual Linbury Lecture for 2020. He eloquently took us through some of the most famous images, mainly Giorgione’s explaining where they might be based on poetry of the time, and if not specific works, on the literary principles in the poems.

He talked about how the work was probably driven by a group of patrons who were interested in rhetoric and the idea that part of the pleasure of art was the discussion of the possible hidden meanings in it. Although they drove the demand it was a way of painting which stared to elevate the status and imaginative role of the artists in the work as the market moved from very specific religious commissions to more nuanced, artistically drive compositions.

He finished by linking the talk to the current exhibition at the National Gallery and wondering whether when Titian referred to the pictures he was painting at poesie whether he was partly referring back to the style of this group of artists, of whom he was part in his youth.

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