c. 1509, 121*141cm
The Three Philosophers shows the potency of this lyrical richness. The actual subject-matter seems not to have mattered
to the artist. He apparently began by intending a picture of the Magi, the three eastern kings who saw the star at Christmastide and journeyed to the manger. The Magi were also believed to be astronomers, star-gazers, and from this Giorgione
travelled mentally to the concept of philosophical search, plotting the stars with a sextant and pondering on their meaning.
Here too are the three ages of man, with the work being embarked upon by the serious youth, held mentally and debated
by the man of maturity, and stored in material form by the elderly sage, glorious in his silken raiment. It is the landscape,
with its autumnal ambience, that gives the work its poignancy. Scholars tells us that the old man's beard suggests to them
the philosophies of Aristotle, that the middle figure wears the
oriental dress reminiscent of Islamic thought, and that the sextant in the boy's motionless hand indic-
ates the new natural philosophy that we now call "scie-
nce", but the information, true or not, seems irrelevant. The point is the poetry, the touch
of interior gravity, the choice.
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