Giorgione's The Tempest is a revolutionary work of its time, painted in Venetian style in the year 1510. The image portrays a picturesque scene with a fountain in the foreground, a receding river, a city in the background, and a thunderstorm in a darkened sky. In the foreground, Giorgione placed two images, one on the right above the fountain breastfeeding her child, and a German soldier on the left, glancing over at her before turning his head continually towards the viewer. Upon x-ray, it was determined that another woman figure was going to be included in the original conception of the work on the left side balancing out the woman on the right, entering into the fountain, but was removed, hence leading to the belief that this image was not derived from any specific even or subject matter.
Because this work did not follow any specific chain of events nor was commissioned but was probably painted for the artists own pleasure, it is believed that much like a poem would be, it may have been painted in response to personal, private impulses, much like modern day artists do, as a medium by which they could express themselves freely. Also, as most poems are, this painting is difficult to decipher in terms of its meaning, purpose, and choice of figures. The image portrays a certain feeling to the viewer, and represents those feelings of the artists therefore allowing the artist to vent his ideas and feelings in an artistic medium much like a poem would allow a writer to do.
This work differs from the work created in Florence and Rome in several ways. On the most superficial level, this work is painted with an oil medium on wooden canvas or panel, a method ideal for the brilliantly colored work of this period. In terms of subject matter, work created in Rome during this period primarily concerned itself with religious subject matter as did much of the work in Florence. Also, much of the work crated by artists in Florence, such as Leonardo da Vinci, used real life human anatomy and painted figures from the inside out, concentrating on every aspect of the human persona.
