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Tintoretto ( , , ; born Jacopo Robusti; late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594) was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed with which he painted, and the unprecedented boldness of his brushwork. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso ("The Furious"). His work is characterised by his muscular figures, dramatic gestures and bold use of perspective, in the Mannerist style.


Life


The years of apprenticeship

Tintoretto was born in
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400  ...
in 1518. His father, Battista, was a dyer, or ''tintore''; hence the son got the nickname of Tintoretto, "little dyer", or "dyer's boy". Tintoretto is known to have had at least one sibling, a brother named Domenico, although an unreliable 17th-century account says his siblings numbered 22. The family was believed to have originated from
Brescia Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and '' comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Iseo ...
, in Lombardy, then part of the
Republic of Venice The Republic of Venice ( vec, Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic ( vec, Repùblega Vèneta, links=no), traditionally known as La Serenissima ( en, Most Serene Republic of Venice, italics=yes; vec, Serenìsima Repùblega de Venèsia ...
. Older studies gave the Tuscan town of Lucca as the origin of the family. Little is known of Tintoretto's childhood or training. According to his early biographers
Carlo Ridolfi Carlo Ridolfi (1594–1658) was an Italian art biographer and painter of the Baroque period. Biography Ridolfi was born in Lonigo near Vicenza. He was a pupil of the painter Antonio Vassilacchi (Aliense). He painted a ''Visitation'' for the O ...
(1642) and Marco Boschini (1660), his only formal apprenticeship was in the studio of Titian, who angrily dismissed him after only a few days—either out of jealousy of so promising a student (in Ridolfi's account) or because of a personality clash (in Boschini's version). From this time forward the relationship between the two artists remained rancorous, despite Tintoretto's continued admiration for Titian. For his part, Titian actively disparaged Tintoretto, as did his adherents. Tintoretto sought no further teaching but studied on his own account with laborious zeal. According to Ridolfi, he gained some experience by working alongside artisans who decorated furniture with paintings of mythological scenes, and studied anatomy by drawing live models and dissecting cadavers. He lived poorly, collecting casts, bas-reliefs, and prints, and practising with their aid. At some time, possibly in the 1540s, Tintoretto acquired models of
Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...
's ''
Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's ...
'', '' Day'', '' Dusk'' and ''
Night Night (also described as night time, unconventionally spelled as "nite") is the period of ambient darkness from sunset to sunrise during each 24-hour day, when the Sun is below the horizon. The exact time when night begins and ends depends ...
'', which he studied in numerous drawings made from all angles. Now and afterwards he very frequently worked by night as well as by day. His noble conception of art and his high personal ambition were both evidenced in the inscription which he placed over his studio ''Il disegno di Michelangelo ed il colorito di Tiziano'' ("Michelangelo's drawing and Titian's colour").


Early works

The young painter Andrea Schiavone, four years Tintoretto's junior, was much in his company. Tintoretto helped Schiavone at no charge with wall paintings, and in many subsequent instances, he also worked for nothing, and thus succeeded in obtaining commissions. The two earliest mural paintings of Tintoretto—done, like others, for next to no pay—are said to have been ''Belshazzar's Feast'' and a ''Cavalry Fight''. These have both long since perished, as have all his frescoes, early or later. The first work of his to attract some considerable notice was a portrait group of himself and his brother—the latter playing the guitar—with a nocturnal effect; this has also been lost. It was followed by some historical subject, which Titian was candid enough to praise. One of Tintoretto's early pictures still extant is in the church of the Carmine in Venice, the ''Presentation of Jesus in the Temple'' (c. 1542); also in S. Benedetto are the ''Annunciation'' and ''Christ with the Woman of
Samaria Samaria (; he, שֹׁמְרוֹן, translit=Šōmrōn, ar, السامرة, translit=as-Sāmirah) is the historic and biblical name used for the central region of Palestine, bordered by Judea to the south and Galilee to the north. The first ...
''. For the Scuola della Trinità (the scuole or schools of Venice were confraternities, more in the nature of charitable foundations than of educational institutions) he painted four subjects from
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
. Two of these, now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, are ''Adam and Eve'' and the ''Death of Abel'', both noble works of high mastery, which indicate that Tintoretto was by this time a consummate painter—one of the few who have attained to the highest eminence in the absence of any recorded formal training. Until 2012, ''The Embarkation of St Helena in the Holy Land'' was attributed to Schiavone. But a new analysis of the work has revealed it as one of a series of three paintings by Tintoretto, depicting the legend of
St Helena Saint Helena () is a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote volcanic tropical island west of the coast of south-western Africa, and east of Rio de Janeiro in South America. It is one of three constitu ...
and the Holy Cross. The error was uncovered during work on a project to catalogue continental European oil paintings in the United Kingdom. ''The Embarkation of St Helena'' was acquired by the
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
in 1865. Its sister paintings, ''The Discovery of the True Cross'' and ''St Helen Testing the True Cross'', are held in galleries in the United States.


Saint Mark paintings

In 1548 Tintoretto was commissioned to paint a large decoration for the Scuola di S. Marco: the ''
Miracle of the Slave ''The Miracle of the Slave'' (also known as ''The Miracle of St. Mark'', 1548) is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Jacopo Tintoretto, and is now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice. It was originally commissioned for the Scuola ...
''. Realizing that the commission presented him with a singular opportunity to establish himself as a major artist, he took extraordinary care in arranging the composition for maximum effect. The painting represents the legend of a Christian slave or captive who was to be tortured as a punishment for some acts of devotion to the evangelist, but was saved by the miraculous intervention of the latter, who shattered the bone-breaking and blinding implements which were about to be applied. Tintoretto's conception of the narrative is distinguished by a marked theatricality, unusual colour choices, and vigorous execution.Echols 2018, p. 7. The painting was a triumphant success, despite some detractors. Tintoretto's friend Pietro Aretino praised the work, calling particular attention to the figure of the slave, but warned Tintoretto against hasty execution. As a result of the painting's success, Tintoretto received numerous commissions. For the church of San Rocco he painted ''Saint Roch Cures the Plaque Victims'' (1549), one of the first of Tintoretto's many ''laterali'' (horizontal paintings). These were large-scale paintings intended for the side walls of Venetian chapels. Knowing that the congregation would view them from an angle, Tintoretto composed the paintings with off-centre perspective so the illusion of depth would be effective when seen from a viewpoint near the end of the painting that was closer to the worshippers. Around 1555 he painted the ''
Assumption of the Virgin The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by Go ...
'', an oil-on-canvas painting for the church of Santa Maria dei Crociferi. In about 1560, Tintoretto married Faustina de Vescovi, daughter of a Venetian nobleman who was the ''guardian grande'' of the
Scuola Grande di San Marco The Scuola Grande di San Marco is a building in Venice, Italy, designed by the well-known Venetian architects Pietro Lombardo, Mauro Codussi, and Bartolomeo Bon. It was originally the home to one of the Scuole Grandi of Venice, or six major ...
. She appears to have been a careful housekeeper, and able to mollify her husband. He had many children with Faustina, of whom three sons ( Domenico, Marco, and Zuan Battista) and four daughters (Gierolima, Lucrezia, Ottavia, and Laura) survived to adulthood.Echols 2018, p. 54. Before his marriage Tintoretto had an additional daughter,
Marietta Robusti Marietta Robusti (1560? – 1590) was a Venetian painter of the Renaissance period. She was the daughter of Tintoretto and is sometimes referred to as ''Tintoretta''. Biography The only known primary source for details of Marietta Robusti's lif ...
, whose mother is not known. Marietta, like her half-brothers Domenico and Marco, was trained as an artist by Tintoretto. In 1551, Paolo Veronese arrived in Venice and quickly began receiving the prestigious commissions that Tintoretto coveted. Unwilling to be overshadowed by his new rival, Tintoretto approached the leaders of his neighbourhood church, the Madonna dell'Orto, with a proposal to paint for them two colossal canvases on a cost-only basis. He had already painted the ''Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple'' (ca. 1556), one of his major works, for the church; it repeats a subject that had earlier been painted by Titian, but in place of Titian's classically balanced composition is a startling visual drama of figures arranged on a receding staircase. Tintoretto now intended to create a sensation by painting for the Madonna dell'Orto the two tallest canvases ever painted during the Renaissance.Butterfield 2007. He settled down in a house near the church, looking over th
Fondamenta de Mori
which is still standing. Depicting the ''Worship of the Golden Calf'' and the ''Last Judgment'', the tall paintings (both ca. 1559–60) were widely admired, and Tintoretto gained a reputation for his ability to complete the most massive projects on a limited budget. Thereafter, Tintoretto habitually competed against rival painters by producing paintings quickly at a low cost. In about 1564, Tintoretto painted three additional works for Scuola di S. Marco: the ''
Finding of the body of St Mark The ''Finding of the Body of Saint Mark'' or ''Discovery of the Body of Saint Mark'' is a painting by Tintoretto. Dated to between 1562 and 1566, it is part of a cycle of paintings of Saint Mark, the patron saint of Venice. It is now held in th ...
'', the ''
St Mark's Body Brought to Venice ''Saint Mark's Body Brought to Venice'', ''The Abduction of the Body of Saint Mark'' or ''Translation of the Body of Saint Mark'' is a painting by Tintoretto. It was produced between 1562 and 1566 as part of a series of works on Saint Mark for ...
'', a ''St Mark Rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck''.


Scuola di San Rocco

Between 1565 and 1567, and again from 1575 to 1588, Tintoretto produced a large number of paintings for the walls and ceilings of the
Scuola Grande di San Rocco The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is a building in Venice, northern Italy. It is noted for its collection of paintings by Tintoretto and generally agreed to include some of his finest work. History The building is the seat of a confraternity estab ...
. The subterfuge by which he won the commission has been called "the most notorious incident of Tintoretto's career".Echols 2018, p. 21. In 1564, four finalists—Tintoretto, Federico Zuccaro, Giuseppe Salviati, and Paolo Veronese—were invited by the Scuola to submit ''
modelli A modello (plural modelli), from Italian, is a preparatory study or model, usually at a smaller scale, for a work of art or architecture, especially one produced for the approval of the commissioning patron. The term gained currency in art circl ...
'' for a ceiling painting on the subject of ''Saint Roch in Glory'' to decorate the hall called the Sala dell'Albergo. Instead of a sketch, Tintoretto produced a full-sized painting, secretly installed it on the ceiling, and presented it as a ''fait accompli'' on the day of the competition. Tintoretto then announced that he was offering the painting as a gift—perhaps conscious that a bylaw of the foundation prohibited the rejection of any gift. In 1565, he resumed work at the scuola, painting the ''Crucifixion'', for which a sum of 250 ducats was paid. In 1576 he presented gratis another centre-piece—that for the ceiling of the great hall, representing the ''Plague of Serpents''; and in the following year he completed this ceiling with pictures of the ''Paschal Feast'' and ''Moses striking the Rock'' accepting whatever pittance the confraternity chose to pay. The development of fast painting techniques called ''prestezza'' allowed him to produce many works while engaged on large projects and to respond to growing demands from clients. This, and his use of assistants, enabled Tintoretto ultimately to produce a greater number of paintings for the Venetian state than any of his competitors. Tintoretto next launched out into the painting of the entire scuola and of the adjacent church of San Rocco. In November 1577, he offered to execute the works at the rate of 100 ducats per annum, with three pictures being due each year. This proposal was accepted and was punctually fulfilled, the painter's death alone preventing the execution of some of the ceiling subjects. The whole sum paid for the scuola throughout was 2,447 ducats. Disregarding some minor performances, the scuola and church contain fifty-two memorable paintings, which may be described as vast suggestive sketches, with the mastery, but not the deliberate precision, of finished pictures, and adapted for being looked at in a dusky half-light. ''Adam and Eve'', the ''Visitation'', the ''Adoration of the Magi'', the ''Massacre of the Innocents'', the ''Agony in the Garden'', ''Christ before Pilate'', ''Christ carrying His Cross'', and (this alone having been marred by restoration) the ''Assumption of the Virgin'' are leading examples in the scuola; in the church, ''Christ Curing the Paralytic''. It was probably in 1560, the year in which he began working in the Scuola di S. Rocco, that Tintoretto commenced his numerous paintings in the Doge's Palace; he then executed there a portrait of the Doge, Girolamo Priuli. Other works (destroyed by a fire in the palace in 1577) succeeded—the ''Excommunication of
Frederick Barbarossa Frederick Barbarossa (December 1122 – 10 June 1190), also known as Frederick I (german: link=no, Friedrich I, it, Federico I), was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death 35 years later. He was elected King of Germany in Frankfurt ...
by Pope Alexander III'' and the ''Victory of Lepanto''. After the fire, Tintoretto started afresh, Paolo Veronese being his colleague. In the Sala dell Anticollegio, Tintoretto painted four masterpieces—''Bacchus, with Ariadne crowned by Venus'', the ''Three Graces and Mercury'', ''Minerva discarding Mars'', and the ''Forge of Vulcan'', which were painted for fifty ducats each, excluding materials, c. 1578; in the hall of the senate, ''Venice, Queen of the Sea'' (1581–84); in the hall of the college, the ''Espousal of St Catherine to Jesus'' (1581–84); in the Antichiesetta, ''Saint George, Saint Louis, and the Princess'', and ''St Jerome and St Andrew''; in the hall of the great council, nine large compositions, chiefly battle-pieces (1581–84); in the Sala dello Scrutinio the ''Capture of Zara from the Hungarians in 1346 amid a Hurricane of Missiles'' (1584–87).


''Paradise''

The crowning production of Tintoretto's life was the vast ''Paradise'' painted for the Doge's Palace, in size , reputed to be the largest painting ever done upon canvas. While the commission for this huge work was yet pending and unassigned Tintoretto was wont to tell the senators that he had prayed to God that he might be commissioned for it, so that paradise itself might perchance be his recompense after death. Tintoretto competed with several other artists for the prestigious commission. A large sketch of the composition he submitted in 1577 is now in the Louvre Museum, Paris. In 1583, he painted a second sketch with a different composition, which is in the
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (in Spanish, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (), named after its founder), or simply the Thyssen, is an art museum in Madrid, Spain, located near the Prado Museum on one of the city's main boulevards. I ...
, Madrid. The commission was given jointly to Veronese and Francesco Bassano, but Veronese died in 1588 before starting the work, and the commission was reassigned to Tintoretto. He set up his canvas in the
Scuola della Misericordia ''Scuola'' ('school' in Italian; plural ''scuole'') is part of the name of many primary and secondary schools in Italy, Italian-language schools abroad, and institutes of tertiary education in Italy. Those are not listed in this disambiguation artic ...
and worked indefatigably at the task, making many alterations and doing various heads and costumes direct from life. When the picture had been nearly completed he took it to its proper place, where it was completed largely by assistants, his son Domenico foremost among them. All Venice applauded the finished work; Ridolfi wrote that "it seemed to everyone that heavenly beatitude had been disclosed to mortal eyes."Echols 2018, p. 216. Modern art historians have been less enthusiastic, and have generally considered the ''Paradise'' inferior in execution to the two sketches. It has suffered from neglect, but little from restoration. Tintoretto was asked to name his own price, but this he left to the authorities. They tendered a handsome amount; he is said to have abated something from it, an incident perhaps more telling of his lack of greed than earlier cases where he worked for nothing at all.


Death and pupils

After the completion of the ''Paradise'' Tintoretto rested for a while, and he never undertook any other work of importance, though there is no reason to suppose that his energies were exhausted if he had lived a little longer. In 1592 he became a member of the ''Scuola dei Mercanti''. In 1594, he was seized with severe stomach pains, complicated with fever, that prevented him from sleeping and almost from eating for a fortnight. He died on 31 May 1594. He was buried in the church of the Madonna dell'Orto by the side of his favourite daughter Marietta, who had died in 1590 at the age of thirty. Tradition suggests that as she lay in her final repose, her heart-stricken father had painted her final portrait. Marietta had herself been a portrait painter of considerable skill, as well as a musician, vocalist and instrumentalist, but few of her works are now traceable. As a girl she used to accompany and assist her father at his work, dressed as a boy. Eventually, she married a jeweller, Mario Augusta. In 1866, the grave of the Vescovi—his wife's family—and Tintoretto was opened, and the remains of nine members of the joint families were found in it. The grave was then moved to a new location, to the right of the
choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...
. Tintoretto had very few pupils; his two sons and
Maerten de Vos Maerten de Vos, Maerten de Vos the Elder or Marten de Vos (1532 – 4 December 1603)Maerten de Vos
at the
of
Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
were among them. His son Domenico Tintoretto frequently assisted his father in the preliminary work for great pictures. He himself painted a multitude of works, many of them of a very large scale. At best, they would be considered mediocre and, coming from the son of Tintoretto, are disappointing. In any event, he must be regarded as a considerable pictorial practitioner in his way. There are reflections of Tintoretto to be found in the Greek painter of the Spanish Renaissance El Greco, who likely saw his works during a stay in Venice.


Personality

Tintoretto scarcely ever travelled out of Venice. His early biographers write of his intelligence and fierce ambition; according to
Carlo Ridolfi Carlo Ridolfi (1594–1658) was an Italian art biographer and painter of the Baroque period. Biography Ridolfi was born in Lonigo near Vicenza. He was a pupil of the painter Antonio Vassilacchi (Aliense). He painted a ''Visitation'' for the O ...
, "he was always thinking of ways to make himself known as the most daring painter in the world." He loved all the arts and as a youth played the
lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
and various instruments, some of them of his own invention, and designed theatrical costumes and properties. He was also well versed in mechanics and mechanical devices. While being a very agreeable companion, for the sake of his work he lived in a mostly retired fashion; even when not painting he habitually stayed in his working room surrounded by casts. Here he hardly admitted anyone, even intimate friends, and he kept his work methods secret, shared only with his assistants. He was full of pleasant witty sayings, whether to great personages or to others, but he himself seldom smiled. Out of doors, his wife made him wear the robe of a Venetian citizen; if it rained she tried to make him wear an outer garment which he resisted. When he left the house, she would also wrap money up for him in a handkerchief, expecting a strict accounting on his return. Tintoretto's customary reply was that he had spent it on alms for the poor or for prisoners. Tintoretto maintained friendships with many writers and publishers, including Pietro Aretino, who became an important early patron.


Style

Tintoretto's style of painting is characterized by bold brushwork and the use of long strokes to define contours and highlights. His paintings emphasize the energy of human bodies in motion and often exploit extreme foreshortening and perspective effects to heighten the drama. Narrative content is conveyed by the gestures and dynamism of the figures rather than by facial expressions. An agreement is extant showing a plan to finish two historical paintings—each containing twenty figures, seven being portraits—in a two-month period of time. Sebastiano del Piombo remarked that Tintoretto could paint in two days as much as himself in two years;
Annibale Carracci Annibale Carracci (; November 3, 1560 – July 15, 1609) was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome. Along with his brother and cousin, Annibale was one of the progenitors, if not founders of a leading strand of t ...
that Tintoretto was in many of his pictures equal to Titian, in others inferior to Tintoretto. This was the general opinion of the Venetians, who said that he had three pencils—one of gold, the second of silver and the third of iron.Tintoretto's pictorial wit is evident in compositions such as ''Saint George, Saint Louis, and the Princess'' (1553). He subverts the usual portrayal of the subject, in which Saint George slays the dragon and rescues the princess; here, the princess sits astride the dragon, holding a whip. The result is described by art critic
Arthur Danto Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University. He was best known for having been a long-time art critic for '' The Nation'' and for his work in philosop ...
as having "the edginess of a feminist joke" as "the princess has taken matters into her own hands ... George spreads his arms in a gesture of male helplessness, as his lance lies broken on the ground ...It was obviously painted with a sophisticated Venetian audience in mind." A comparison of Tintoretto's final ''The Last Supper''—one of his nine known paintings on the subject— with
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on ...
's treatment of the same subject provides an instructive demonstration of how artistic styles evolved over the course of the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
. Leonardo's is all classical repose. The disciples radiate away from
Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
in almost-mathematical symmetry. In the hands of Tintoretto, the same event becomes dramatic, as the human figures are joined by angels. A servant is placed in the foreground, perhaps in reference to the
Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...
13:14–16. In the restless dynamism of his composition, his dramatic use of light, and his emphatic perspective effects, Tintoretto seems a
baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
artist ahead of his time. Tintoretto was Venice's most prolific painter of portraits during his career.Echols 2018, p. 145. Modern critics have often described his portraits as routine works, although his skill in depicting elderly men, such as ''Alvise Cornaro'' (1560/1565), has been widely admired. According to art historians Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, the many portraits from Tintoretto's studio that were executed largely by assistants have hampered appreciation of his autograph portraits which, in sharp contrast to his narrative works, are understated and somber. Lawrence Gowing considered Tintoretto's "smouldering portraits of personalities who seemed consumed by their own fire" to be his "most irresistible" works. He painted two self-portraits. In the first (ca. 1546–47; Philadelphia Museum of Art), he presents himself without the trappings of status that were customary in self-portraits that came before. The image's informality, the directness of the subject's gaze, and the bold brushwork visible throughout were innovative—it has been called "the first of many artfully unkempt images of the self that have come down through the centuries." The second self-portrait (ca. 1588;
Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the '' Venus de Milo''. A central ...
) is an austerely symmetrical depiction of the aged artist "bleakly contemplating his mortality".
Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bor ...
, who painted a copy of it, considered it "one of the most beautiful paintings in the world."


Legacy

In 2013, the
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
announced that the painting ''The Embarkation of St Helena in the Holy Land'' had been painted by Tintoretto (and not by his contemporary Andrea Schiavone, as previously thought) as part of a series of three paintings depicting the legend of St Helena and the Holy Cross. In 2019, honouring the anniversary of the birth of Tintoretto, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in cooperation with the Gallerie dell'Accademia organized a travelling exhibit, the first in the United States. The exhibition features nearly 50 paintings and more than a dozen works on paper spanning the artist's entire career and ranging from regal portraits of Venetian aristocracy to religious and mythological narrative scenes.


Gallery

File:Jacopo Tintoretto - The Supper at Emmaus - WGA22423.jpg, ''The Supper at Emmaus'' (1542 or 1543) File:Jacopo Tintoretto 030.jpg, ''
The Deliverance of Arsinoe ''The Deliverance of Arsinoe'' is a 1555–56 painting by Tintoretto, now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. It shows Arsinoe IV of Egypt fleeing from Alexandria after Julius Caesar arrived in the city in 48 BC and sided with Arsin ...
'' (c. 1560) File:Jacopo Tintoretto - Marriage at Cana - WGA22470.jpg, ''Marriage at Cana'' (1561),
Santa Maria della Salute Santa Maria della Salute ( en, Saint Mary of Health), commonly known simply as the Salute, is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica located at Punta della Dogana in the Dorsoduro sestiere of the city of Venice, Italy. It stands on the na ...
File:Jacopo Tintoretto - Finding of the body of St Mark - Yorck Project.jpg, ''
Finding of the body of St Mark The ''Finding of the Body of Saint Mark'' or ''Discovery of the Body of Saint Mark'' is a painting by Tintoretto. Dated to between 1562 and 1566, it is part of a cycle of paintings of Saint Mark, the patron saint of Venice. It is now held in th ...
'' (c. 1564), Pinacoteca di Brera File:Jacopo Tintoretto - The Origin of the Milky Way - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Origin of the Milky Way'' (1575) File:Jacopo Tintoretto - Judith and Holofernes - WGA22661.jpg, ''Judith and Holofernes'' (c. 1577),
Prado Museum The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from th ...
File:Tintoretto and lukrecja.jpeg, ''Tarquin and Lucretia'' (c. 1578), Art Institute of Chicago File:Jacopo tintorettto, fuga in egitto, 1583-87.jpg, ''The Flight into Egypt'' (c. 1582) File:Madonna with Child,Tintoretto.jpg, alt=, ''Madonna with Child and Donor'', National Museum of Serbia, Belgrade


Notes


References

* Bernari, Carlo, and Pierluigi de Vecchi (1970). ''L'opera completa del Tintoretto''. Milano: Rizzoli. (Italian language) * * Echols, Robert (2018). ''Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice''. Yale University Press. . * Nichols, Tom (2015) 999 ''Tintoretto: Tradition and Identity'', revised and expanded second edition. London: Reaktion Books . * Ridolfi, Carlo (1642). ''La Vita di Giacopo Robusti'' (''A Life of Tintoretto'') *


External links

*
Works
at Web Gallery of Art, the most complete gallery of the web
www.JacopoTintoretto.org
257 works by Tintoretto
Works and literature
on PubHist
Jacopo Tintoretto. Picturesand Biography
{{Authority control 1518 births 1594 deaths 16th-century Italian painters 16th-century Venetian people Italian Mannerist painters Painters from Venice Italian male painters Republic of Venice artists Italian Roman Catholics Catholic painters