Giorgione's Tempest: the Woman Clothed with the Sun

In my interpretation of Giorgione’s "Tempest" as “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt” I argued that the nudity of the nursing Madonna is the painter’s idiosyncratic attempt to depict the Immaculate Conception of Mary. In this post I will discuss other attempts by contemporaries of Giorgione to also depict the concept of the Immaculate Conception.

Although only proclaimed a dogma by Pope Pius IX in 1854, the Immaculate Conception of Mary was a subject of great debate and controversy in the years up to and including the Renaissance. For centuries theologians had debated the question with the Dominicans and Franciscans, the two preaching orders, taking the lead. Only in the late fifteenth century did Pope Sixtus IV, a Franciscan, attempt to put an end to controversy by adding the feast of the Immaculate Conception to the liturgy of the entire Western church.

As so often happens, the action of Sixtus IV was in response to a tremendous upsurge in devotion to Mary in the fifteenth century. This devotion inevitably led to attempts at artistic depiction. But the concept was a difficult one to depict. Even today many Catholics still confuse the dogma of the Immaculate Conception with the Virgin birth. But the dogma does not refer to the birth of Jesus to a virgin or even to Mary’s own birth. The dogma refers to the freedom of Mary from the stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception in the womb of her own mother. The great nineteenth century historian Emile Male described this mysterious idea that finally blossomed at the time of Giorgione.

toward the end of the fifteenth century, a mysterious idea that had been secretly geminating in man’s soul for more than five hundred years, suddenly blossomed. It now seemed clear to theologians that the Virgin could not have partaken of original sin, being especially exempted from the law by divine decree. Mary, the perfect model of newly created humanity, like Eve at the time she was created by the hands of God, had come into the world free of the burden of sin.*

It was not easy to depict this mysterious, spiritual idea.

The task was difficult. How was one to represent the Virgin as a pure concept? How convey her creation without sin, by God’s decree, her existence in his thought before the creation of time?

In my paper I discussed what might be called the three major templates. But here I would just like to focus on the one that eventually gained the most popularity: the image from the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) of the woman clothed with the Sun, with the stars in her crown, and with the Moon at her feet.

Here is the image from the Breviary done for Cardinal Grimani, a prince of the Church from one of the leading Venetian families and a noted patron and collector of art. The Grimani Breviary was a product of the Netherlands.

Grimani Breviary: Immaculate Conception
Woman in the sky clothed with the Sun

In “Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice” Rona Goffen argued that both Giovanni Bellini’s Frari triptych and Titian’s Assunta represented “the dedication of the Frari to the Immaculate Conception in visual imagery that suggests the similarities of the Madonna, and hence her church, with the Most serene republic of Venice.”**

It appears to me that the visual imagery must include the gold background of both paintings and that both artists were thinking of a way to depict a woman clothed with the Sun.

Giovanni Bellini: Pesaro chapel, Frari

Titian: Assunta, Frari

In a version of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” dated around 1516-18 Correggio used an unusual color scheme for the clothing of the Madonna. Her cloak is the traditional blue but her dress, usually a shade of red, has been painted a yellow gold. Was this Correggio’s way to depict the Woman clothed with the Sun? In her doctoral dissertation on the iconography of the flight into Egypt, Susan Schwartz wondered why a depiction of the Rest should have been placed in the Capella della Concezione of the church of San Francesco in Correggio.***

Correggio: Rest on the Flight into Egypt

In the Tempest Giorgione had the audacity to depict the Madonna on the flight into Egypt as the Immaculate Conception clothed only with the bright sun that shines upon her despite the dark storm clouds in the distance.

Finally, a few years after Giorgione's death a Native American, Juan Diego, had a vision of a woman clothed with the Sun whose image was subsequently implanted on his tilna that today can still be seen at the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. ###

*Emile Male: Religious Art in France, the Later Middle Ages, Princeton, 1986. p. 197.

**Rona Goffen: Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, Yale, 1986, p. 154.

***Sheila Schwartz, “The Iconography of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” New York University, Ph. D., 1975, pp. 142-143.

Giorgione's Tempest: Marian Symbols

If it wasn’t for the nudity of the Woman in Giorgione’s “Tempest”, we would easily recognize the painting as a version of “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt.” The broken columns in the mid-ground are commonplace in versions of the Rest. In recent posts we have also seen that at the beginning of the sixteenth century St. Joseph was being portrayed as younger and more virile than in earlier depictions. We also know that a nursing mother will almost always be the Madonna.

Besides the fact that the woman in Giorgione’s “Tempest” is nursing, there are two other elements that help to identify her as the Madonna. First, there is the white cloth that extends over her shoulders and even envelopes her son. Second, there is the plant featured so prominently in front of the woman.

First, let’s consider the cloth. Although some have called it a shirt, it is obvious that it is not an article of a woman’s clothing. It is much too large. No only does it cover the child, but it also covers the woman’s shoulders and back, and then overflows onto the ground. What is it? In my interpretation of the “Tempest” I identified the cloth as the corporale, the white cloth that covers the altar at every Mass. In Franciscan spirituality Mary was identified as the altar on which the Eucharist was placed.

In “Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice” the late Rona Goffen, one of the most prolific Venetian Renaissance scholars, noted the connection between the Madonna and the Eucharistic altar. For example, in Giovanni Bellini’s famed Pesaro altarpiece in the Frari,

the viewer-worshipper is meant to identify the Madonna with the altar and the Child with the Eucharist. Bellini's visual assertion of this symbolic equivalence is explained by a common Marian epithet. The Madonna is the "Altar of Heaven." the Ara Coeli, that contains the eucharistic body of Christ....Ave verum Corpus, natum de Maria Virgine."* (53)

Later Titian would utilize the corporale in his famed Pesaro altarpiece. Goffen identified the white cloth on Mary’s head in that famous painting as the corporale:

the Madonna's veil recalls the winding cloth, ritualized as the corporale, the cloth spread on the altar to receive the Host of the Mass.**

Titian: Pesaro Altarpiece, Frari

There are other examples. In the so-called “Allendale Adoration of the Shepherds”, variously attributed to Giorgione or Titian, the infant Christ lies on a white cloth that is placed on the stony ground. Many nativity scenes such as this one were actually depictions of the first Mass. The infant Christ, the Eucharist, lies on the white cloth that covers the stony ground.

A lost Giorgione painting that only exists in a seventeenth century copy was once thought to depict the story of the discovery of the infant Paris on Mt. Ida. It is actually a depiction of an encounter of the Holy Family with robbers, an apocryphal episode associated with the flight into Egypt. In that painting the infant Christ lies on a white cloth spread on the stony ground.

Examples could be multiplied but the fact remains that no other explanation of the “Tempest” has tried to explain the significance of the white cloth.

Despite countless studies and interpretations, scholars have also avoided discussion of the plant in front of the woman. Some think that it is there to cover the woman’s nakedness although it is obviously doing a very poor job. Most interpretations don’t even mention it. If you take another look at the "Allendale Adoration" above, you will see that a plant (probably a bay laurel) also features prominently in that painting.

When I first saw the “Tempest” I wondered about the plant and thought that it might be one of the plants that are commonly associated with the Madonna. Knowing little about plants, I consulted my younger brother, a high school science teacher and master botanist. It is incredible to walk through the woods with him and hear him name every tree and plant and discuss their characteristics. Without flowers it is hard to identify, but he suggested that the root structure and the way it is growing indicate a nightshade.

Even I knew that the most well known nightshade was the deadly nightshade or belladonna, a plant that I subsequently found out was associated with witchcraft and the devil. Although poisonous, Italian women in Giorgione’s time commonly used belladonna extract to dilate and beautify their eyes. The belladonna plant became another piece of the “Tempest” puzzle that fit so easily into place. What else could explain the fact that the part of the plant below the heel of the woman had withered and died than the famous quote from Genesis 3:15? God speaks to the serpent about Eve and her offspring. 

I will make you enemies of each other:
You and the woman,
Your offspring and her offspring.
It will crush your head
And you will strike its heel. 

Modern scholars use either “he” or “it” to indicate that it is the offspring that will crush the head of the serpent. During the Renaissance the Latin Vulgate used “she”. ###

*Rona Goffen, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, Yale, 1986, p. 53.

Goffen, op. cit., p. 114.

Giorgione's Tempest: The Nursing Woman

In my interpretation of Giorgione’s “Tempest” as the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” I acknowledged that the nudity of the Woman in the painting was a great difficulty. A nude Madonna is so unique that it is unimaginable. Nevertheless, when I first saw the painting, I think the fact that the woman was nursing her child must have led me to see the Madonna. 

Giorgione: Tempest detail

If Giorgione had clothed the woman, or even just exposed one breast, no one would ever have failed to see the Madonna in this painting. The nursing Madonna or "Maria Lactans" was an extremely popular subject during this era. Usually she is depicted in a landscape with indications that the artist is representing a legendary episode on the flight into Egypt.

Here are some examples. First, we’ll look at two painters from the Netherlands who practically made a living by depicting this subject over and over again. 

Joaquim Patenier: Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Joaquim Patenier painted many versions of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. In this version the Madonna sits squarely in the center draped in her traditional blue cloak with a white cloth on her head. One breast is exposed as she nurses her Child. St. Joseph's staff and pilgrim's basket are in front of her while off to the left he searches for food. Behind is a large stone ball atop what remains of the Egyptian temple that according to legend crumbled at the approach of the infant Jesus. In the background there is a depiction of a wheat field that is associated with another legend of the flight. In the left background storm clouds cover a city just as in Giorgione's Tempest.

Gerard David: Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Gerard David and his workshop also turned out many versions of the "Rest." In these the Madonna is often just holding her Son on her lap but in the above painting in New York's Metropolitan Museum the Madonna's breast is exposed as she nurses her child. In the right background David depicted the Holy Family on their way into Egypt. A casual tour of the Met or most any museum will disclose other versions of the nursing Madonna by Netherlandish artists.

Italian artists also painted many versions of the nursing Madonna no doubt responding to the demands of patrons. Here are some examples by contemporaries of Giorgione. The Italian versions tended to be more naturalistic than those from the Netherlands and often omitted obvious apocryphal details. Here are examples by Bernardino Luini, Correggio, and Antonio Solario.

Bernardino Luini

Correggio

Antonio Solario

In addition to the above five, a simple image search for "Maria Lactans" will reveal dozens of nursing Madonnas done by contemporaries of Giorgione. On the other hand, it is very difficult to find a pagan goddess or nymph nursing her child. Therefore, whenever we see a nursing mother, we should immediately think Virgin Mary. As far as the "Tempest" is concerned the question should not be, "Who is the Woman?" but "Why did Giorgione want a nude Madonna in this painting.?"

I have dealt with that issue in my paper but will will take another look in subsequent posts. ###