Painting: Giorgione's La Tempesta

In Mark Helprin's novel A Soldier of the Great War, the painting, La Tempesta, by the 15th century Venetian painter figures prominently.  See my post on the novel here. The painting is worth a blog of its own.  Here it is.

“In Giorgione’s painting you find very little red.  The dominant colors are green and gold: green, of course, being the color of nature, and gold the divine and tranquil color of which, like perfection, so little exists.  The painters of Giorgione’s time, by and large, spoke in these terms.  Red was the instrument with which they portrayed mortality; green, nature; gold, God.  With the notable exception scattered from painter to painter and school to school, you will find this born out subtly and simply."

                               Mark Helprin, from A Soldier of the Great War, p. 832

This is a great painting.  I love Helprin's commentary on it.  Read more commentary that I excerpted in my blogs on Helprin's novel.