In the Age of Giorgione

The book which accompanies the RA exhibition but equally enjoyable for those who haven't seen the paintings for real. It shows Giorgione in the context of his time, place and artistic influences. Wonderful illustrations which clearly show one of the masters of portraiture who has rarely been equalled. It makes me determined to return again and again to see these paintings for real.

magnificente age of beauty

EXCELLENT BOOK WITH EXCELLENT SERVICE, THANKS

This exhibition marks the first exhibition dedicated to a period spanning just over a decade in the sixteenth century in one of the world's most magical cities: Venice. And a period which produced a master who, despite having relatively few (surviving) works attributed to him with absolute certainty, he was to achieve fame in his lifetime and have a profound influence upon Western art. His genius and fame may have been eclipsed in Venice, following his death in 1510, by other great (and longer living) painters, such as Titian (who may have studied with or under him) and Tiepolo. Nonetheless, his name is still remembered, still considered important - and lends itself to the title of this exhibition, opening in March 2016 in London. His name was Zorzo da Castelfranco, better known to the world under his more common monicker of Giorgione.The catalogue opens with an enticing sounding essay: The Biography of a Myth. The essay is interspersed with illustrations which makes it briefer than the less than ten pages within the catalogue it actually covers. The title is more promising than the text. The text, though interesting, covers little new ground and is written a rather bland fashion which although not bland, is rather dry and doesn't invite the reader to whet his or her curiousity further and wish to learn more about this acclaimed, much interpreted Venetian master.Better presented and laid out than a previous show at the Royal Academy focussing on a sixteenth century master, Moroni, which divided the exhibition catalogue into an essay filled with reproductions of differing sizes of the paintings on show - followed by snippets of scholarship on each picture afterwards, this catalogue has large full page reproductions of all the works on display and the accompanying scholarship to the left of the image. The scholarship is thorough, mainly discussing the history of the picture rather than a distilled history of the sitter (where information if any is known) or of the artist (as a fair number of the pictures divide scholars, or have been "attributed to".) The paintings however are not well reproduced in the book sadly as the colours often appear darker than they are, and certainly considerably more matted in appearance doing little justice to the splendid use of colour by the artists in exhibition. For example, Bellini's "Virgin and Child with Saints Peter and Mark, and a Donor" is vibrant with colour, and yet in the catalogue appears subdued, and almost gloomy. Had the book been printed on shiny, glossy paper then some of the glory of the artists on display might well have been more apparant to those unfamiliar with their works - and not disappointing to those who have enjoyed the exhibition already.Another disappointment of the book is that it highlights the lack of actual paintings in the show which have indeed been largely, firmly attributed to Giorgione. Indeed the proportion of "actual" Giorgione works in contrast to other artists is almost laughable. For the reader (and visitor) one feels like one is visiting a cake shop full of delicious delights, and being told that the pictures on display of some of the more sumptuous looking cakes are in fact not there to buy and be enjoyed, but simply as a tantalising tease of what the shop might have been able to sell were the right ingredients available. Admittedly, this is not the fault of the book nor its authors, but it does allow for a sense of disappointment that the Royal Academy was not able to borrow works such as Laura, the Dresden Venus, the Three Philosophers, etc - and has only been able to reproduce them in the context of their catalogue. Also lacking in the context of the book are essays by some of the leading scholars of Venetian Renaissance painting discussing the artist, his works, the city he lived in, and which would indeed have made the book a fascinating read. It would also allow the specialist or scholar to perhaps learn something new or see a different viewpoint, rather than feel rather short changed.One final quibble, purely in design of the book (dark and badly reproduced plates aside) is that the book has been printed with a mustard yellow spine (!) on the dust jacket. Stylish and modern this may be, but such colours fade quickly on the shelves unless curtains are permanantly kept shut to prevent bleaching by sunlight. Yellow and reds are prone to fade faster in sunlight than dark blues or blacks, A black spine with letters would have suited the choice of painting to illustrate the cover of the book, and certainly would have been less jarring.The Royal Adademy have produced some wonderful catalogues in times past, and for future reference might consider looking at those produced in America by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (where paintings are beutifully reproduced, and there is plentiful scholarship and essays contained in the body of the book). In conclusion, an average catalogue giving a rundown of a show that could have been, should have been, much better.

An exhibition catalogue should be full of high quality reproductions, clearly printed text and academic insights. This book has none of the above. The pictures are so dark that you can't see the features on many of the faces. Or details on the trees or caves in the landscapes. The font of the main body text is far too small to read easily and when a quotation is used the font is even smaller! Oh and printed in bold type to make it even less easy to read. I would call the catalogue amateur but that would be an insult to amateur publishers. Shame on the Royal Academy publications, I am very disappointed and I actually want my money back. The text reads like it has been downloaded from a website as one might expect from a D or E grade GCSE project.

I bought the catalogue because it was such a good exhibition. If you haven't seen the exhibition,I suspect it's a bit hard to see the point of the catalogue - there is little new scholarship but muchexcellent curatorship.The story is a bit fragmented, but it is an interesting one and much better in bothstory and catalogue production than some of the reviews suggest. Some crucial developments in western artare (well) presented here.

The print quality is dreadful, more grainy than books from the 1960s. Introduction is a bland outline of historic scholarship with no new thesis presented. Individual entries tend to list opinions of art historians with no new critical intelligence, giving too much credence to eccentric Giorgione attributions. And some are just wildly implausible; accepting the Hermitage's own assessment of its 'Giorgione' Virgin and Child is absurd.