The Tempest

Between the two figures in Giorgione's Tempest, two broken columns stand on a low wall. They are the most-analysed detail in the whole painting. Medieval Christian art used broken columns to represent the Fall of Idols, the legend that every pagan idol crumbled when the infant Jesus entered Egypt. But this is not a religious painting. The Italian scholar Salvatore Settis argued the two figures are Adam and Eve after the Fall, with the lightning bolt representing God. Others read the painting through the Roman philosopher Lucretius. Nobody knows for certain. Giorgione left no explanation. This is the first painting in Western art whose subject is genuinely unknown. Now at Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice @gallerieaccademiavenezia