Venetian painter with a link to the High
Renaissance and Mannerism.
Tintoretto Self Portrait, (c.1859) Lourve, Paris.
Tintoretto’s House in Venice
Portrait of the Artist as a Younger Man (c.1546-8)
Tintoretto worked on mythological paintings and
biblical apocryphal subjects; - these tended to be
erotic and full of saturated colour.
Tintoretto, Susanna Attending Her Bath (1560)
compare with this
Edouard Manet Le dejeuner sur l’ herbe – Luncheon on the Grass,
Exhibited at the Salon des Refuses (1863)
Giorgione The Tempest (c.1508) Galleria dell’ Accademia Venice, Italy
Tintoretto, Susanna Attending Her Bath, (1560)
Tintoretto, Susanna and the Elders, (1555-6)
Tinoretto, Leda and the Swan (c.1555)
Tintoretto, Women Making Music
Tintoretto, The Origin of the Milky Way, (1570) National Gallery, London.
Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne (1520- 1522)
Who did These Paintings?
Eduoard Manet , Olympia, (1863), Musee d’Orsay, France
Tintoretto Vulcan Surprises Venus and Mars (c.1551)
Tintoretto Temptation of Adam (c.1550/3)
Tintoretto Leda and the Swan (c.1555)
(the lost work by Leonardo)
Leda & the Swan copy by Cesare Sesto after a lost original by Leonardo (1512-1520)
Oil on Canvas, Wilton House, England
Tintoretto `St. Roch in Glory,’ (1564) Scuola di San Rocco, Venice
Tintoretto, St George and the Dragon, (c.1555) Oil on Canvas, National Gallery, London
Tintoretto, The Deliverance of Arsino (c.1560)
Tintoretto The Presentation of the Virgin (c.1552),Madonna del Orto, Venice
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti) (1518-94). Venetian painter.
His nickname derives from his father's profession of dyer (tintore). Although he was prolific and with Veronese the
most successful Venetian painter in the generation after Titian 's death, little is known of his life. He is said to have
trained very briefly with Titian, but the style of his immature works suggests that he may also have studied with
Schiavone, Paris Bordone, or Bonifazio.
Almost all his life was spent in Venice and most of his work is still in the churches or other buildings for which it
was painted. He appears to have been unpopular because he was unscrupulous in procuring commissions and
ready to undercut his competitors. By 1539 he was sufficiently mature to be established independently, painting
pictures composed in a traditional Venetian manner with the figures arranged parallel to the picture plane and
unlinked by any strong movement or variation in the arrangement.
His early masterpiece is the Miracle of the
Slave (Accademia, Venice, 1548), in which many of the qualities of his maturity, particularly his love of
foreshortening, begin to be distinguishable. To help him with the complex poses he favoured, Tintoretto used to
make small wax models which he arranged on a stage and experimented on with spotlights for effects of light and
shade and composition. This method of composing explains the frequent repetition in his works of the same figures
seen from different angles. He was a formidable draughtsman and, according to Ridolfi, he had inscribed on his
studio wall the motto `The drawing of Michelangelo and the colour of Titian'. However, he was very different in spirit
from either of his avowed models -- more emotive, using vivid exaggerations of light and movement. His drawings,
unlike Michelangelo's detailed life studies, are brilliant, rapid notations, bristling with energy, and his colour is more
sombre and mystical than Titian's.
Tintoretto's greatest works are the vast series of paintings he did for the Scuola di San Rocco from 1565 to
1587scenes from the life of Christ in the upper hall and scenes from the life of the Virgin in the lower hall. The
complicated system, starting in the upper hall, was probably not conceived by Tintoretto himself, but he interpreted
it with a vividness and economy of colour and detail which gives a miraculous cohesion to the whole scheme. Its
personal conception of the sacred story overwhelmed Ruskin, who devoted eloquent pages to it, and Henry James
wrote of the stupendous Crucifixion: `Surely no single picture in the world contains more of human life: there is
everything in it, including the most exquisite beauty.' The unorthodox rough brushwork incurred the censure of
Vasari, but later generations recognized it as a means of heightening the drama and tension. As well as religious
works, Tintoretto painted mythological scenes and he was also a fine portraitist, particularly of old men (a selfportrait in old age is in the Louvre). Some of the weaker portraits that go under his name may be the product of his
large workshop. His son Domenico (c. 1560-1635) became his foreman and is said to have painted many portraits,
although none can be attributed to him with certainty. Another son, Marco (1561-1637), and a daughter, Marietta (1556-90),
were among his other assistants. The later paintings can thus be divided into those which are largely studio productions on
the one hand and the visionary inspirations from Tintoretto's own hand on the other. A prime example of the latter is The Last
Supper (S. Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, 1592-94), the culmination of a lifetime's development of this subject, from the traditional
frontal representation to this startling diagonally viewed composition. Tintoretto had great influence on Venetian painting, but
the artist who most fruitfully absorbed the visionary energy and intensity of his work was El Greco.
Tintoretto, Miracle of the Slave, (1548)
Raphael’s Deliverance of St Peter form Prison 1514, Stanza di Eliodoro
`Fire in the Borgo’ (1511-14) also by Raphael
Tintoretto has allusions and similarities with
Mannerism as seen in the following works
Pontormo Deposition (1525-28)
Tintoretto, Tarquin and Lucretia (1578-80)
Bronzino Allegory (c. 1545) National Gallery, London
(After Michelangelo) , Cartoon for the Battle of Cascina (c.1505) by Michelangelo's Pupil Aristotele da Sangallo (the original drawing destroyed).
(Tintoretto, Drawing study for figures)
Michelangelo’s preparatory drawing for the Battle of Cascina
Tintoretto preparatory sketch for Venus surprised by Vulcan (c.1551)
Tintoretto Vulcan Surprises Venus and Mars (c.1551)
The legend of St Mark
In 828, relics believed to be the body of St. Mark were
stolen from Alexandria by two Venetian merchants and
were taken to Venice, where the Byzantine Theodore of
Amasea had previously been the patron saint. A basilica
was built there to house the relics.
There is a mosaic on this Venetian basilica showing how
the sailors covered the body relics with a layer of pork.
Since Muslims are not allowed to touch pork, this action
was done to prevent Muslim intervention in the relics
removal.
Tintoretto painted the series of works depicting the Legend of St Mark
for the Scoula Grande di San Marco, of whom his future father in law
Marco Episcopi was a significant player and guardian grande of the
school. Tintoretto painted Four Works for this.
The Miracle of the Slave (1548)
The Removal of the Body of St Mark (1562-66)
Finding of the Body of Saint Mark (1562-66)
St Mark Rescuing a Saracen form Shipwreck (1562-1566)
Tintoretto Miracle of the Slave (1548)
Tintoretto The Removal of the Body of St Mark (1562-66) Gallerie dell’ Academia, Venice
Tintoretto The Removal of the Body of St Mark (1562-66) Brera, Milan
Tintoretto Finding of the body of St Mark (1562-66)
Tintoretto St Mark rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck (1562-1566)
Tintoretto St Mark rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck (1562-1566)
Tintoretto St Mark rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck (1562-1566)
Compare this to Michelangelo’s Last Judgement (1534- 1541)
…
remember Tintoretto’s motto,
“ … The drawing of Michelangelo and the and colour of Titian. ”
Michelangelo, The Damned, from the Last Judgement (1534-1541) Sistine Chapel, Vactican, Rome
Tintoretto St Mark rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck (1562-1566)
Miracle of the Slave (1548)
Tintoretto, Christ at the Sea of Galilee, (1575)
Tintoretto, The Last Supper, (1594)
Tintoretto Miracle of the Slave (1548)
Note Contrapposto
Tintoretto The Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple (c.1552)
Tintoretto uses silvery light, daring compositions, extreme
foreshortening Repoussoir figures, which gesture in the
appropriate direction, unexpected viewpoints, contrasts
of scale, unusual movement along with visionary effects
of colour and flickering light.
Tintoretto The Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple (c.1552),Madonna del Orto, Venice
Michelangelo’s Lybian Sybil , (Sistine Ceiling) 1508 -12
Tintoretto, study for the corpse in St George and the Dragon (c.1555)
Tintoretto “Christ Washing his Disciples’ Feet “ (c.1547-9) Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain
compare
Raphael School of Athens, (1509-1510 Stanze della Signatura ,Vatican , Rome
Tintoretto was definitely Mannerist in conception, but
commentators, say he is the last link to the achievements
of the High Renaissance, while being a forerunner to the
Baroque.
He remains first and foremost a stay at home,… dyed in the
wo0l Venetian Painter.
Titian “The Transfiguration” ( 1560-65), San Salvador , Venice,
Titian, The Assumption of the Virgin, (1516-18), Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa del Frari Venice.
Tintoretto, Miracle of the Slave (1548)
For his phenomenal energy in painting Tintoretto was
termed Il Furioso. His dramatic use of perspectival
space extreme angled poses and special lighting
effects make him a precursor of Baroque art.
Venetian painter with a link to the High
Renaissance, Mannerism, and the future of
painting.
Tintoretto “Christ Washing his Disciples ‘Feet “ (c.1547-9) Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain
Portraits by Tintoretto
Portrait Tintoretto, Portrait of Procurator, Jacopo Soranzo, (c.1550)
Jacopo Tintoretto, `Portrait of Doge Pietro Loredan’, (c.1567/70)
Tintoretto, Portrait of Paulo Carnaro, (1561)
Tintoretto Portrait of Jacapo Sansovino, Oil an canvas, N.D.
Note: the same subject again ... some decades later
Tintoretto Portrait of Jacapo Sansovino (again) (1561)
THE END
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