My Favorite Paintings at Galleria dell’Accademia, Venice (Venice Academy)
One was “Tempest” by Giorgione. Perhaps, this one is even more mysterious and intriguing than the more famous “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo Da Vinci. This painting was full of symbols whose meanings largely lost to modern minds. On its foreground, on the left, was a young man in fanciful dress, not quite a knight but not your common city or country folks either. He gazed at the far right, but not at the woman sitting in the bush, nursing her baby. She looked towards the left, but not quite at the young man either. Most mysterious element was that she had only some short cape over her should and completely nude down below. She seemed sitting on the rest of her clothes. The background was a city/country scene rather reminiscent of more medieval Sienna. Above the cityscape, lightening flashed across stormy sky, in the same lovely green/blue hue, which actually was the signature of Giorgione to me.
In regardless whatever the symbolism this painting held, it was a lovely painting, with charged dramatic gestures and held the viewers in complete enthrallment.
