Events from the year 1508 in art.

Events

• December - Michelangelo begins painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Holy See of Rome on a commission by Pope Julius II (signed May 10). This year also he completes a bronze statue of the Pope for San Petronio Basilica in Bologna, destroyed in 1511.

Works

• 
  Giorgione, The Tempest
• 
  Raphael, The Tempi Madonna

• Fra Bartolomeo - Holy Father, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine of Siena
• Vittore Carpaccio - The Presentation of the Virgin (approximate date)
• Albrecht Dürer
  • Heller Altarpiece (possible date)
  • Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand
• Giorgione (approximate dates)
  • Shepherd with a Flute
  • The Tempest
  • La Vecchia (Old Woman)
• Lorenzo Lotto
  • Madonna with Child between Sts. Flavian and Onuphrius
  • Recanati Polyptych
• Raphael
  • Colonna Madonna
  • Niccolini-Cowper Madonna
  • The Tempi Madonna
• Lucas van Leyden – Mohammed and the Murdered Monk (engraving)

Births

• November 25 - Cristofano Gherardi, Italian Mannerist painter (died 1556)
• date unknown
  • Livio Agresti, Italian painter, one of the members of the "Forlì painting school" (died 1580)
  • Pieter Aertsen, Dutch historical painter (died 1575)
  • Antonio da Trento, Italian artist especially of woodcuts (died 1550)
  • Girolamo da Treviso, Italian painter (died 1544)
  • Giovanni Bernardo Lama, Italian painter (died 1579)
  • Qian Gu, Chinese landscape painter during the Ming Dynasty (died c.1578)
  • 1508/1510: Lodovico Dolce, Italian art theorist (died 1568)
  • 1507/1508: Wenzel Jamnitzer, Northern Mannerist goldsmith, artist, and printmaker in etching (died 1585)

Deaths

• Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis, Italian Renaissance painter from Milan (born 1455)
• Wu Wei, Chinese landscape painter during the Ming Dynasty (born 1459)
• 1508/1509: Bernt Notke, German painter and sculptor (born 1435)