GIORGIONE
(b. 1477, Castelfranco, d. 1510, Venezia)

Virgin and Child in a Landscape

c. 1503
Oil on canvas, 44 x 37 cm
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

The innovations of Giovanni Bellini, in whose work the landscape became visual testimony to the grandeur of the world God created, were being skillfully developed in the early works of his pupil Giorgione. Chromatically more resonant and enriched by contrasts of light and shade, this landscape sets the tone and gives the Christian subject a new, sensual-poetic content.