Tintoretto
NAME: Tintoretto (The Little Dyer)
ACHIEVEMENTS: Leading Venetian painter following Titian.
NICKNAME/ALIAS: Real name: Robusti, Jacopo
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: c. 1518, Venice, Italy
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: May 31, 1594, Venice, Italy. Aged about 76
DISCIPLINE: Painter
FIELD: Art
LANGUAGE: Italy
PARENTS: Giovanni Battista Robusti; Mother unknown
SIBLINGS: Unknown
SPOUSE: Faustina Episcopi
CHILDREN: About 8, of whom: Marco; Domenico; Marietta; Perina; Altura; Ottavia
EDUCATION: Unknown
MAJOR WORK: "The Last Supper" (two versions, 45 years apart), "The Miracle of the Slave", "The Worship of the Golden Calf", "The Ascension", "Bacchus and Ariadne", "Self-Portrait", "St. Mary of Egypt"
LIFE AND WORK:
Tintoretto's early works show the influence of Italian painters <influenced by> Michelangelo* and Parmigianino. Tintoretto possessed drawings of Michelangelo's statues in the Medici Chapel in Florence and drew from them. But his work was not derivative.
As well as copying from the masters, he also drew from nature, and often set up little wax models which he lit as though they were stage sets, so he could experiment with form and light. And he had the uncanny ability to draw directly onto canvas or panel with paint and paintbrush. Tintoretto's earliest surviving work, "Apollo and Marsyas", painted in 1545, was commissioned for a ceiling in Italian writer <commissioned by> Aretino*'s house.
His first masterpieces, "The Last Supper" (1547), painted for the church of San Marcuolo in Venice, and "The Miracle of the Slave" (1548), showed remarkable technique and vitality. "The Last Supper", for example, showed some of the Apostles getting up from the table, which added life to the picture. "The Miracle of the Slave” had the same powerful sense of immediacy. The painting portrayed panicked spectators clinging to a column, a stunned executioner turning to show his broken hammer, and the saint zooming to the rescue as if from the sky.
"The Miracle of the Slave" got Tintoretto considerable notice in Venetian artistic circles. Around 1552, he painted "The Presentation of the Virgin" as the decoration for organ shutters in the church of the Madonna del Orto. His emotional interpretation differed greatly from <differed from> Titian*'s rational treatment of the same story, and was considered by his contemporary <contemporary was> Vasari* to be the best painting in the church. (Vasari, who visited Venice in 1541, gave some new artistic ideas to Tintoretto, including the partitioning of ceiling paintings.)
By 1560, Tintoretto's studio was a meeting place not only for Venetian artists, such as Titian and the young <at his studio was> Veronese*, but for Dutch and German painters, and for young foreign culture-seekers like the English courtier <painted> Sidney*, who had his portrait painted by Veronese.
Tintoretto painted two huge pictures for the Gothic church of Madonna del Orto, "The Worship of the Golden Calf" and a "Last Judgment". Both were dramatic representations with splendid contrasts of light and shade and depth of perception. The same deep perspective is seen in "The Transport of the Body of St. Mark" (1562).
One huge project took Tintoretto 20 years to complete. In 1564, the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, a fraternal religious organization, hired him to redecorate their Sala dell'Abergo. Tintoretto emulated Veronese's method of combining rich colors and the results were stunning. In "Christ before Pilate", which he completed the first year, a background of dark architecture highlighted and isolated the gaunt body of Christ. In "Ascension" (1576-81), the edges of the angels' wings made a pattern against the open meadow where the Apostles stood.
In the several scenes of Christ's passion, Tintoretto showed the range of his imagination and his empathy with his subject. His use of light to suggest emotion was vividly evident in the large "Crucifixion", where the many figures around the Christ were enveloped in a blinding light.
In 1578 Tintoretto painted a series of mythological paintings, including four of "Bacchus and Ariadne" for the Doge's Palace and "The Origin of the Milky Way." He painted historical pictures -- mostly battle scenes -- for the Gonzagas, the ruling family of Mantua. But after 1578, he began giving a lot of his work to his pupils, including his children Marietta and Domenico. He used assistants to do much of the work in the Doge's Palace after a fire in 1577.
Although Tintoretto did many portraits, they are considered inferior to his other works, with the notable exception of his self-portrait of around 1588. Movingly human (critics say the other portraits lacked humanity), it still had an iconic quality to it that reflected the Byzantine tradition of Venetian art.
As he was nearing 70, Tintoretto was commissioned to paint rooms in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. Here, by brushing a long stroke of light pigment across a dark ground, he created an illusion of light that transformed the natural landscape into a visionary statement. This kind of effect was most evident in "St. Mary of Egypt" and "St. Mary Magdalene."
His "The Last Supper" of 1592-94 for the church of San Giorgio Maggiore showed a much deeper spirituality than the 1547 version. Indeed, Tintoretto was profoundly religious through his life, and saw his work as a means of expressing his piety and of inspiring and comforting the poor.
ASSESSMENT: Incorporating Mannerism with dynamic imagination and piety, he became the leading Venetian painter after Titian in the latter half of the 16th century.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Knew <knew> Trissino*.
Painter <may have taught> El Greco* may have been a pupil.
Influenced painter <influenced> Rubens*
<a fan was> Ruskin* was a fan
ONELINER: Tintoretto, Venetian Old Master
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Pallucchini, Anna, Tintoretto, Thames and Hudson, London, 1971
Rosand, David, Painting in Sixteenth-Century Venice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997