The Storm (c. 1505), 82×73 cm, oil on canvas, Accademia, Venice. Giorgione (c. 1477–1510) was the most inspiring painter of the Venetian Renaissance school; one of Giovanni's finest disciples, he was deeply influenced early on by Giovanni and Messina. Especially in his pagan themes that transcend religion, such as Pastoral Concert and The Storm, landscape became the master of his painting, poetically pioneering a new genre of landscape painting. Through the literary, musical, and poetic qualities of this painting, it became a pioneer of landscape painting in Western art. From then on, Venetian school painting after Giorgione tended toward literary and musical qualities and allegory. His most famous inheritors were Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo. When Giorgione died in 1510, the following year both Sebastiano del Piombo and the renowned portraitist Lorenzo Lotto left Venice, making it Titian's domain. (Giorgione's paintings brought the Venetian Renaissance to its climax with four distinctive features: 1. secular themes; 2. small pictures for ordinary people and private collections; 3. small religious works created not for churches but for individuals; 4. infinite subtle variations of light and shadow. These profoundly changed the appearance and development of Venetian painting.)

The Storm is an innovative landscape painting, independent from the human figures of the past, arguably the first landscape in Western art history. In the distance, dark clouds gather over a small bridge, flowing water, and village under thunder and rain, while the foreground appears so serene, almost unimaginable. A soldier in armor stands in the lower left corner, and on the right, a naked mother peacefully nurses her infant on a rock. Under this strong contrast, this paradoxical atmosphere creates a sense of mystery. Overall, within a rigorous composition, perfect geometric architecture, and vibrant natural scenery, the blue and green tones on both sides harmonize with the black, gray, and flickering yellow tones of the storm in the center. What do these signify? Do they suggest that humanity should coexist perfectly with nature? Even so, it embodies the Renaissance concept of harmonious unity through roaring and tranquility, nature and culture, geometry and non-geometry, sensibility and rationality, imagination and poetry.