Editing Giorgione (section)

== Attributions ==
[[File:Giorgione 029b.jpg|thumb|250px|''[[The Three Philosophers]]'', [[Vienna]]. Attributed to Giorgione by Michiel, who said [[Sebastiano del Piombo]] finished it; some modern writers also involve [[Titian]] in its completion]]
Attributions of work by Giorgione's hand dates from soon after his death, when some of his paintings were completed by other artists, and his considerable reputation also led to very early erroneous claims of attribution. The vast bulk of documentation for paintings in this period relates to large commissions for Church or government; the small domestic panels that make up the bulk of Giorgione's oeuvre are always far less likely to be recorded. Other artists continued to work in his style for some years, and probably by the mid-century deliberately deceptive work had started.<ref>[[Cecil Gould]], The Sixteenth Century Italian Schools, National Gallery Catalogues, London 1975, p. 107, {{ISBN|0-947645-22-5}}</ref>

Primary documentation for attributions comes from the Venetian collector Marcantonio Michiel. In notes dating from 1525 to 1543 he identifies twelve paintings and one drawing as by Giorgione, of which five of the paintings are identified virtually unanimously with surviving works by art historians:<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-2710 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20090702084702/http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-2710 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2009-07-02 |title=EB online |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |access-date=2013-05-27}}</ref> ''The Tempest'', ''The Three Philosophers'', ''Sleeping Venus'', ''Boy with an Arrow'',<ref>Vienna, illustrated below. Described in 2007 as "a rare example of a painting still universally attributed to Giorgione" in Lucy Whitaker, Martin Clayton, ''The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection; Renaissance and Baroque'', p. 185, Royal Collection Publications, 2007, {{ISBN|978-1-902163-29-1}}.</ref> and ''[[Shepherd with a Flute]]'' (not all accept the last as by Giorgione however). Michiel describes the ''Philosophers'' as having been completed by Sebastiano del Piombo, and the ''Venus'' as finished by Titian (it is now generally agreed that Titian did the landscape). Some recent art historians also involve Titian in the ''Three Philosophers''. The ''Tempest'' is therefore the only one of the group universally accepted as wholly by Giorgione. In addition, the ''Castelfranco Altarpiece'' in his hometown has rarely, if ever, been doubted, nor have the wrecked fresco fragments from the German warehouse. The Vienna ''Laura'' is the only work with his name and the date (1506). This is on the back and is not necessarily by his own hand, but does appear to come from the period. The early pair of paintings in the [[Uffizi]] are usually accepted.
[[File:Fiesta campestre.jpg|left|thumb|250px|''[[Pastoral Concert]]''. [[Louvre]], Paris. A work that the museum now attributes to [[Titian]], c. 1509.<ref>[http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/pastoral-concert From the Louvre Museum Official Website] It is often called the ''Fête Champêtre'' (meaning "Picnic") in older works.</ref>]]
After that, things become more complicated, as exemplified by [[Giorgio Vasari|Vasari]].  In the first edition of the ''Vite'' (1550), he attributed a ''[[Christ Carrying the Cross (Giorgione)|Christ Carrying the Cross]]'' to Giorgione; in the second edition completed in 1568 he ascribed authorship, variously, to Giorgione in his biography, which was printed in 1565, and to Titian in his, printed in 1567. He had visited Venice in between these dates, and may have obtained different information.<ref>Charles Hope in David Jaffé (ed.), ''Titian'', The National Gallery Company/Yale, p. 12, London 2003, {{ISBN|1-85709-903-6}}</ref> The uncertainty in distinguishing between the painting of Giorgione and the young Titian is most apparent in the case of the [[Louvre]]'s ''[[Pastoral Concert]]'' (or ''Fête champêtre''), described in 2003 as "perhaps the most contentious problem of attribution in the whole of Italian Renaissance art,"<ref>Charles Hope in David Jaffé (ed.), ''Titian'', The National Gallery Company/Yale, p. 14, London 2003 {{ISBN|1-85709-903-6}}</ref> but affects a large number of paintings possibly from Giorgione's last years.

The ''Pastoral Concert'' is one of a small group of paintings, including the ''Virgin and Child with Saint Anthony and Saint Roch'' in the [[Prado]],<ref>Listed as "Giorgione (?)" in the 1996 Prado catalogue, which notes the debate, but in 2007 labelled as Titian in the gallery. See ''Museo del Prado, Catálogo de las pinturas'', 1996, p. 129, Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Madrid, No ISBN.</ref> which are very close in style and, according to Charles Hope, have been "more and more frequently given to Titian, not so much because of any very compelling resemblance to his undisputed early works—which would surely have been noted before—as because he seemed a less implausible candidate than Giorgione. But no one has been able to create a coherent sequence of Titian's early works that includes these ones, in a way that commands general support, and fits the known facts of his career. An alternative proposal is to assign the ''Pastoral Concert'' and the other pictures like it to a third artist, the very obscure Domenico Mancini."<ref>Charles Hope in Jaffé (ed.), ''Titian'', 2003, op. cit., p. 14. Francis Richardson, who wrote the catalogue entry for the Prado painting (no. 34) in: Jane Martineau (ed.), ''The Genius of Venice, 1500–1600'', 1983, Royal Academy of Arts, London,
after considering Mancini, is one of those happy to attribute the painting to Titian. The Mancini suggestion comes originally from a German article of 1933 by J. Wilde: "Die Probleme um Domenico Mancini", JKSW</ref> While Crowe and Cavalcaselle considered the ''Concert'' from Palazzo Pitti as Giorgione's masterpiece but disattributed the Louvre's ''Pastoral Concert'', Lermolieff reinstated the ''Pastoral Concert'' and claimed instead that the Pitti ''Concert'' was by Titian.<ref>Uglow, Luke, [https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/uglow.pdf Giovanni Morelli and his friend Giorgione: connoisseurship, science and irony], ''Journal of Art Historiography'', No. 11, December 2014.</ref>

[[Giulio Campagnola]], well known as the engraver who translated the Giorgionesque style into [[old master print|prints]], but none of whose paintings are securely identified, is also sometimes also brought into consideration. For example, the late W.R. Rearick gave him ''Il Tramonto'' (see Gallery) and he is an alternative choice for a number of drawings that might be by Titian or Giorgione, and both are sometimes credited with the design of some of his engravings.<ref>John Dixon Hunt (ed.), ''The Pastoral Landscape'', National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992, pp. 146–7, {{ISBN|0-89468-181-8}}</ref>
[[File:The Adoration of the Shepherds - Giorgione - 1505 NG Wash DC.jpg|thumb|left|260px|''[[Adoration of the Shepherds (Giorgione)|The Allendale Nativity/Adoration of the Shepherds]]'' c. 1505 – [[National Gallery of Art]]. The "Allendale Group" takes its name from this painting.]]
A group of paintings from an earlier period in Giorgione's short career is sometimes described as the "Allendale group", after the ''Allendale Nativity'' (or ''Allendale Adoration of the Shepherds'', rather more correctly) in the [[National Gallery of Art, Washington]]. This group includes another Washington painting, the ''Holy Family'', and an ''Adoration of the Magi'' [[predella]] panel in the [[National Gallery, London]].<ref>[http://www.nga.gov/press/exh/191/invention.pdf NGA 2006 exhibition brochure, page 4] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121012072059/http://www.nga.gov/press/exh/191/invention.pdf |date=October 12, 2012 }}</ref> The paintings in this group, now often expanded to include a very similar ''Adoration of the Shepherds'' in Vienna,<ref>[http://www.khm.at/giorgione/en/03/paintings.html Kunthistoriches Museum 2004 exhibition website] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050325161807/http://www.khm.at/giorgione/en/03/paintings.html |date=March 25, 2005 }}</ref> and sometimes other works, are increasingly included in or sometimes excluded from Giorgione's oeuvre. Ironically, the ''Allendale Nativity'' caused the rupture in the 1930s between [[Lord Duveen]], who sold it to [[Samuel Kress]] as a Giorgione, and his expert [[Bernard Berenson]], who insisted it was an early Titian. Berenson had played a significant part in reducing the Giorgione catalogue, recognising fewer than twenty paintings.<ref>"his works ... not a score in all" in ''Italian Painters of the Renaissance'', 1952, (many editions).  By the last (1957) edition of his ''Lists'', Berenson had changed his mind and listed all the three main "Allendale" works as "by Giorgione" – see Gould op. cit. p. 105.</ref>

Matters are further complicated because no drawing can be certainly identified as by Giorgione (although one in Rotterdam is widely accepted), and a number of aspects of the arguments over the defining of Giorgione's late style involve drawings.

Despite being greatly praised by contemporary writers and remaining a great name in Italy, Giorgione became less known to the wider world, and many of his (probable) paintings were assigned to others. The Hermitage ''Judith'' for example, was long regarded as a [[Raphael]], and the Dresden ''Venus'' a Titian. In the late 19th century a great Giorgione revival began, and the fashion ran the other way. Despite well over a century of dispute, controversy remains active. Large numbers of pictures attributed to Giorgione a century ago, in particular portraits, are now firmly excluded from his oeuvre, but debate is, if anything, more fierce now than then.<ref>See the ''Art Journal'' review of a major 1993 Paris exhibition, which lists some Ballarin additions to the corpus [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-15383257.html by Wendy Stedman Sheard]</ref> There are effectively two fronts on which the battles are fought: paintings with figures and landscape, and portraits. According to David Rosand in 1997, "The situation has been thrown into new critical confusion by Alessandro Ballarin's radical revision of the corpus ... [Paris exhibition catalogue, 1993, increasing it] ... as well as Mauro Lucco ... [Milan book, 1996]."<ref>David Rosand, ''Painting in Sixteenth-Century Venice'', 2nd ed. 1997, p. 186, n. 74; Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|0-521-56568-5}} For some Ballarin attributions, see previous note.</ref> Recent major exhibitions at Vienna and Venice in 2004 and Washington in 2006, have given art historians further opportunities to see disputed works side by side (see External links below).

But the situation remains confused; in 2012 [[Charles Hope (art historian)|Charles Hope]] complained: "In fact, there are only three paintings known today for which there is clear and credible early evidence that they were by him. Despite this, he is now generally credited with between twenty and forty paintings. But most of these ... bear no resemblance to the three just mentioned. Some of them might be by Giorgione, but in most cases there is no way of telling".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hope|first1=Charles|author-link=Charles Hope (art historian) |date=24 May 2012 |title=At the National Gallery |journal=[[London Review of Books]] |volume= 34|issue= 10|page= 22|url= http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n10/charles-hope/at-the-national-gallery|access-date=28 November 2012}}</ref>