"The Tempest" By Giorgione
The picture is titled, “The Tempest”, and is one of the chief works of Venetian Renaissance. The artist is Giorgione, one of the greatest, universal painters, who had a very enigmatic and short life. Little is known about him.
The main motif of the picture are the sky and landscape, (it is considered the first landscape painting of Europe). Giorgione made sure to highlight these aspects and de-emphasize the human figures. This may be an invitation to try and search for teachings in nature and to pay attention to the higher.
The key is in the puzzling female figure at the right. What is a partially naked woman nurturing a baby doing in the middle of the countryside? It is not something literal, but an allegory of Being; of refined essence. Her almost complete nudity indicates her lack of coverings; her Being free of falsehood, of masks, which is how one must arrive at reaching the higher. She only wears a light white blouse, a symbol of purity. The teaching rests on this woman: she has awakened and to show it, Giorgione paints her facing us. She is in the present moment. Her soul has been born in the shape of a baby, helpless before the external world, who is embraced and fed by the woman.
But a more efficient defense against the world is played by the young man at the left of the painting. He is placed on a lower level than the woman. He represents the machine or the most worldly side of being. He wears red, a symbol of life, of flesh and blood. He is a machine at the service of the soul, able to defend it using a spear if needed. He looks smiling to the new mother, but he is not close to her. He is neither her lover nor her husband. He stands at a healthy distance from her. He cannot reach her and the painter shows this with the stream between them.
“The Tempest” is about to crash down over the setting , but the mother seems unconcerned. She has enough Being to undergo this kind of friction. Really, problems are crafted by the Higher in order to teach us, and the painter points it out with the lightning bolt that glows among the clouds. Even at the most terrible and dark, God stands with us.
~EDO
