Tom Nichols is a reader in art history at the University of Glasgow. His previous books include Tintoretto: Tradition and Identity and Titian and the End of the Venetian Renaissance, both also published by Reaktion.
Nichols's book serves as an excellent, cerebral, and insightful essay on one of the most influential and enigmatic of Renaissance painters. Like one of Giorgione's own pictures, Nichols's analysis is lyrical, and thought-provoking; constantly drawn to the profound implications of its subject, yet never less than concise and accessible. The book is particularly welcome and timely. . . . Nichols is able to reserve his considerable intellectual energy for a revitalising and superbly informed discussion of the essence of Giorgione--both in terms of the elusive, enfolded meanings of his art, and in providing the reader with a navigable, clear-headed guide to a corpus of key works. --Philip Cottrell, assistant professor in art history, University College Dublin