Focus on Shepherd with a Flute and discuss the abstract.
Shepherd with a flute, or Boy with a Pipe, is a painting in oil on canvas of perhaps 1510–1515, in recent decades usually attributed to Titian, though in the past often to Giorgione. It is now in the Royal Collection in the King's Closet at Windsor Castle.  Since at least 1983 it has been called Boy with a Pipe ('The Shepherd') by the Royal Collection; previous titles the collection recognise include Shepherd with a pipe, and The Shepherd.A boy or young man now in a loose white shirt looks away from the viewer out of the picture space, apparently "lost in thought".  He holds a woodwind instrument, as though he has just been playing it.  X-ray radiography reveals that the figure "originally wore a more formal style of white shirt with continuous gathers under a slate-blue doublet".  This has implications for the question of whether the painting was ever intended as a portrait of an individual, or, as is generally thought more likely, is an idealized and generalized image of a type.  This type of painting can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci but was taken up by several Venetian artists in the early 16th century.Though now not generally thought to be painted by Giorgione, the composition and subject are certainly very much in his style, and this may be a copy of a lost original by him. It is very similar in composition and mood to the Boy with an Arrow, (1506?) in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, which is "a rare example of a painting still universally attributed to Giorgione".  This is partly because it was mentioned by Marcantonio Michiel in 1531, along with a lost "shepherd who holds fruit in his hand".
Kunsthistorisches Museum woodwind Marcantonio Michiel X-ray radiography Titian Royal Collection Leonardo da Vinci Giorgione Windsor Castle