The Tempest
Apart from his larger commissioned works, most of what Giorgione painted was smaller paintings, designed for personal collectors to keep in their homes. This is one such piece, measuring 33 by 29 inches, commissioned by Gabriele Vendramin, a Venetian noble. It is said to be the first landscape in Western painting, and its symbolic implications are up to determination, as there have been many differing interpretations of its meaning. While some interpretations go so far as to indicate that the man and the woman represent Adam and Eve, the sucking babe Cain, and God in the form of lighting and the coming storm, others see no meaning in the work, and state that Giorgione had no particular story in mind while he was completing the work.
