The Three Philosophers
The Three Philosophers | |
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Artist | Giorgione |
Year | c. 1505–1509 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 123 cm × 144 cm (48 in × 57 in) |
Location | Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
The Three Philosophers is an oil painting on canvas attributed to the Italian High Renaissance artist Giorgione. It shows three philosophers – one young, one middle-aged, and one old.
The work may have been commissioned by the Venetian noble Taddeo Contarini, a Venetian merchant with an interest in the occult and alchemy.[1][2] The Three Philosophers was finished one year before the painter died. One of Giorgione’s last paintings, it is now displayed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
The painting was thought to have been finished by Sebastiano del Piombo, but a "new infrared reflectogram lends no support to the theory".[3][4]
Description
The Three Philosophers was finished around 1509, and the current name of the work derives from a writing of
Interpretations
Various interpretations about Giorgione's picture have been proposed. The Three Philosophers — the old man, the Arab figure, and the young man — could depict the transmission of knowledge, the
The young man could be seen as the new Renaissance science with roots in the past, looking into the empty darkness of the cave, symbolizing the yet undiscovered secrets.
New hypotheses about the figures, their identities and the symbolism are still currently advanced. In a note about the picture G. C. Williamsom, early in the 20th century, stated that "It represents
It has been suggested that the figure of the young man can be inscribed neatly in a right-angled triangle for which the
Other scholars have asserted that the figures are typical representations for three stages of humanity (youth, middle and old age), three epochs of European civilization (Antiquity, Middle Age, Renaissance), the three Abrahamic religions or some combination of such general conceptions.[18]
Augusto Gentili proposed that the picture illustrates the waiting for the Antichrist, based on conjunctionist astrology. On the sheet held by the oldest philosopher the word "eclipsis" and an astronomical diagram can be seen. The great conjunction of 1503 and the eclipse the same year were believed to be signs announcing its coming.[19]
James Panero writes that, in interpreting The Three Philosophers, he is "partial to the poetic approach proposed by art historian Tom Nichols in his book Giorgione’s Ambiguity, in which he suggests that our interpretation is meant to remain free-floating and open-ended. Deliberate ambiguities, he writes, are Giorgione’s 'visual traps set to capture the viewer's curiosity and speculation.'"[20]
Theatrum Pictorium
This painting was documented in
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1673 engraving from Teniers' catalog, by Jan van Troyen
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1650
This painting is displayed at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. While working on his picture, David Teniers the Younger made tiny separate copies of each and every picture as a study for the final big painting, depicting the duke's collection. It is a small copy that measures 21.5 x 30.9 cm.[24] [25]
References
External media | |
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Audio | |
Google Art Project (Audio 5) | |
Video | |
Giorgione's Three Philosophers, c. 1506, Smarthistory |
- ^ Bellini and Giorgione in the House of Taddeo Contarini
- ^ Panero, James, "Giorgione in the house", The New Criterion, February 2024, pp. 55-57.
- ^ a b David Alan Brown and Sylvia Ferion-Pagden, Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting. National Gallery of Art and Kunsthistorisches Museum, p. 164 (2006 exhibition catalog).
- ^ Tom Nichols, Giorgione's Ambiguity, London, UK: Reaktion Books, 2020, p. 140 (The Three Philosophers is the subject of pp. 135-142).
- ^ Marcantonio Michiel, Notizie d’opere di disegno, manuscript, Venice (see Zeleny)
- ^ a b c Beckett (1994), p. 167
- ^ Settis S. (1990), Giorgione's Tempest: Interpreting the Hidden Subject, University Of Chicago Press
- ^ a b "Avicenna-and-Averroes -The Three Philosophers". lesmaterialistes.com. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
- ^ "Writers following [Johannes] Wilde [in 1932] regarded Giorgione's figures as the Three Wise Men on the grounds that one of them may have been black. After [Jaynie] Anderson argued in 1979 that x-raydiographic evidence cannot determine underlying color, the view that the Three Philosophers were Magi has not been repeated". David Alan Brown and Sylvia Ferion-Pagden, Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting. National Gallery of Art and Kunsthistorisches Museum, p. 164 (2006 exhibition catalog).
- ISBN 978-0751301335
- ^ www.britannica.com
- ^ "Avicenna". global.britannica.com. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
- ^ G. C. Williamson, ed. (1903), The Anonimo. Notes on Pictures and Works of Art in Italy Made by an Anonymous Writer in the Sixteenth Century (trans. Paolo Mussi), London: George Bell and Sons, p. 102 [1]
- ^ Neil K. MacLennan and Ross S. Kilpatrick, King Solomon & the Temple Builders: A Biblical Reading of Giorgione's Painting "The Three Philosophers". Heredom 9 (2001)
- ^ Polydore Vergil, De inventoribus rerum, libri tres, Venetia, 1499
- ^ Zeleny K., The Giorgione Code, Kunsthistorisches Museum Papers Archived 2013-12-02 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Keim F., Die Entdeckung der Jupitermonde 105 Jahre vor Galileo Galilei, 2009, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag.
- ^ see Settis S., MacLennan and Kilpatrick, op. cit.
- ^ Gentili, A., Giorgione, Giunti Editore (coll. Dossier d'art), 1999 (Google Books)
- ^ Panero, James, "Giorgione in the house", The New Criterion, February 2024, pp. 55-57.
- ^ 39 in Theatrum Pictorium, 1673
- ^ "David Teniers and the Cabinet of Archduke Leopold William". courses.washington.edu. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
- ^ "historians of Nederlandish art - David Teniers's Theatrum Pictorium". www.hnanews.org. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
- ^ "venetian-art-in-late-17th - showing David Teniers the Younger's copy". renruskin.blogspot.se. Retrieved 2 November 2014.
- ^ Gombrich E. "A note on Giorgione's 'Three Philosophers'". Burlington Magazine, 128 (1986), p. 488 [JSTOR]. Only a copy made by David Teniers the Younger.
External links
- Page at Giorgione and Titian (in German)
- King Solomon and the Temple Builders
- Bellini and Giorgione in the House of Taddeo Contarini Exhibition of The Three Philosophers and Giovanni Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert at the Frick Collection, November 9, 2023 to February 4, 2024. Accompanying catalog: Bellini and Giorgione in the House of Taddeo Contarini