(Giustiniani Portrait)
oil on canvas, 58 x 46 cm
Berlin, Staatliche Museen
The anonymous young man faces the viewer and returns the latter's gaze with a melancholic and reserved, perhaps even slightly distant gaze. Here we encounter already the beginnings of the subsequent stylistic evolution in Giorgione's portraits which were to achieve a surprising degree of animation and spiritual presence - as, for example, in the Laura, La Vecchia, the Portrait of a Man in San Diego, and the Road to Calvary in San Rocco. In these paintings the connection with the viewer is further intensified, and the latter drawn into the psychological and emotive life of the sitter.
back to Overview
