Die drei Lebensalter des Menschen

Giorgione painted this in Venice around 1500, and almost everything about its subject is still argued over. Three men of different ages cluster around a sheet of music. The young one at the centre reads it, an older man points at the notes, and the oldest looks straight out at us. Whether it is a singing lesson, a philosopher teaching a boy, or some lost allegory, no one is certain, and the title we use only dates from the 17th century, long after Giorgione was dead. He died young, around 1510, probably of plague, leaving very few certain paintings and a habit of exactly this kind of quiet, unexplained scene. The faces emerge from a plain dark ground, lit as if by a low indoor lamp.