The National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) and Tintoretto: A story 500 years in the making

To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of Tintoretto, Venice Civic Museums Foundation began preparation as far back as 2015 for a monumental exhibition of his works. The result was a collaboration with the National Gallery of Art of Washington DC, and cooperation with local and international art galleries and collectors, which yielded two exhibitions. The first, Tintoretto 1519 - 1594, was divided between the Doge's Palace and Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, with the latter locale featuring works from the artist's youth. A selection from the works exhibited at those two locations were then merged into a single exhibition -- Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice -- currently on show at the National Gallery of Art. This exhibition will end on July 7th.

I was fortunate enough to have visited on May 17th. I arrived prior to the museum opening and was among the first to enter. My transit through the exhibition was smooth.

The exhibition is distributed through 10 rooms of Gallery 74 on the museum's main floor while the painting Saint Martin in Glory with Saint Peter and St Paul is exhibited by itself in the hallway of Gallery B. Attendees are directed to this painting after completing the tour of the main exhibit.

Saint Martial in Glory with Saint
Peter and Saint Paul
Jacopo Tintoretto, 1549

The exhibition is organized chronologically for the most part and even though there are broader themes, they slotted in well with the overall chronological schema. The themes are shown in the table below.

Table 1. Organization of the exhibit.

Theme	Explanation
The Mark of the Brush	Tintoretto’s painting technique
Breakthrough	Miracle of the Slave (1548) was his breakthrough effort. This section features paintings dome just before, during, and just after that recognition
Drawings from Sculpture	Tintoretto drew sculptures as a way to understand 3-dimensional forms
Heroic Bodies	Muscular, dynamic figures inspired by his study of the works of Michelangelo and other sculptors from antiquity
A Great Portraitist	One of the greats of 16th-century portraiture
Officeholders	Portraits of Officeholders
Storyteller	Supreme narrative painter of his day, especially as it related to religious subject matter
Tintoretto at Work	Planning the composition and his use of mannequins
The Mantle of Titian	Seeking to appeal to the old master’s clientele with scenes from classical mythology
Sacred Meditations	Religious works in his closing days

Reinforcing the chronological theme is a pair of self-portraits of the author. The first, painted in 1546 - 47, is located in the first room of the exhibit and shows a confident, forthright Tintoretto staring over his right shoulder at the viewer. The second, located at the end of the program, shows a 70-year-old Tintoretto looking glumly out at the viewer, his face and demeanor clearly reflecting the passage and travails of time. This was an artful bookending of the exhibition.

Self-Portrait
Jacopo Tintoretto, c. 1546/1547

Self-Portrait
Jacopo Tintoretto, c. 1588

In my post on the life of the artist, I mentioned him coming into fame after painting St Mark Freeing the Slave (1548). All of the paintings in the first salon, and most of the ones in the second, were completed prior to this "coming out." For me though, his Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan could have easily been the launchpad (except maybe for the subject matter). The painting tells a great story with elements of humor and danger interwoven. The purity of Venus' skin is contrasted with her musculature and with the textured treatment of Vulcan's body. This is a captivating picture.

Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan
Jacopo Tintoretto, c. 1545/46

Viewers of this exhibition are treated to robust and statuesque individuals in varying contortionate poses; many of the subjects are airborne. His treatment of the hands and arms of the subjects are especially interesting. Bodies are reminiscent of Michelangelo and female subjects appear unnaturally muscled.

The Last Supper
Jacopo Tintoretto, c. 1563/64

The room showing the portraits is an oasis in the turbulence that is the totality of the exhibition. The subjects are still and, for the most part, looking directly at the viewer. The eyes are captivating.

Portrait of a man with a white Beard
Jacopo Tintoretto, 1555

A Procurator of St Mark's
Jacopo Tintoretto, c. 1575/85

The organization and flow of the exhibition is complemented by overarching documentation in each room and painting-side documentation for each piece of artwork.

In examining the sources of the paintings in the collection, I noticed that three were from the Gallerie dell'Accademia, two were from the Doge's Palace, and three from the National Gallery. Beyond that, the exhibition pieces were sourced from a who-is-who of museums around the world, with a couple drawn from private collectors.

The Virgin Mary in Meditation and The Virgin Mary Reading were sourced from the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, the organization wherein Tintoretto placed in excess of 50 paintings over a 24-year period. This is the first time that these two paintings have ever left Venice. It should also be noted that the relationship of subject to landscape that is observed in these paintings is directly at odds with the norm for a Tintoretto piece.

The Virgin Mary in Meditation
Jacopo Tintoretto, c. 1582/83

The Virgin Mary Reading
Jacopo Tintoretto, c. 1582/83

This exhibition is extensive and comprehensive but does not include some of the artists greatest works. For example, St Mark Freeing the Slave and the Crucifixion of Christ are not included, the latter, I am sure, because of its size. The show does not suffer as a result of these missing works as the artist's style and range of work can be comprehended by a viewing of the works on display. I am now fully motivated to travel to Venice to see the works which could not make the trip over.

©EverythingElse238

Tintoretto: A Venetian Master

The artist that we know as Tintoretto was born Jacopo Comin in 1518 in Venice. His father gained the nickname Robusto after the manner in which he manned the ramparts during the course of a battle. His father's profession was that of a dyer (Tintore in Italian) so Jacopo took Tintoretto (little dyer) as his surname.

The young Tintoretto showed artistic tendencies in his youth such that, at 12 years of age, his father sought to apprentice him to Titian. His tenure with Titian lasted all of 10 days, with the resulting ill-will lasting until Titian's death.

Bereft of a master, Tintoretto worked diligently to hone his painterly skills. In addition to working in the world of fine art on canvas, he worked with fresco and furniture painters, areas which required rapid painting, one of the hallmarks of his future career.

Tintoretto's technique embraced the very nature of oil paint itself: slow-drying and easily reworked, the medium allowed the artist to devise the composition directly on the canvas and make changes as he worked. Foregoing the goal of capturing the illusion of reality, Tintoretto delighted in shortcuts, using broad strokes and strong contours to define forms, as if drawing in paint. His bold and energetic brushwork, left thick and visible on the surface, make his pictures look startlingly new -- and continues to inspire painters today (National Gallery of Art).

Self-Portrait
Jacopo Tintoretto, c. 1546/1547

The first works which brought him critical acclaim, and established him as one of the finest young artists on the Venetian scene, were the paintings done for Scuola Grande di San Marco in 1548 and between 1562 and 1564. The 1548 effort was The Miracle of St Mark Freeing the Slave which, according to museothyssen.org, featured elements such as daring foreshortening, artificial poses of the figures, and brilliant chromatic range. The painting created a sensation and made him the most talked-about painter in Venice with a number of commissions from churches and confraternities resulting (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC).

The Miracle of St Mark Freeing the Slave
Jacopo Tintoretto, 1548

The works completed in the 1562 - 1566 timeframe were The Finding of the Body of St Mark and St Mark's Body brought to Venice.

The next major cycle of work involved the Scuola Grande di San Rocco. The Scuola leadership had asked that five artists submit drawings for the rotunda ceiling, with the promise that the artist of the winning drawing would be invited to paint the said space. Rather than submitting a drawing, Tintoretto painted the space in full, revealing his effort when all the parties had gathered together. Further, knowing that the Scuola could not refuse a donation, he gifted the painting to the organization. This infuriated the other painters who were "outraged by his aggressive marketing."

Bad feelings notwithstanding, he signed a contract to decorate the walls and ceilings of San Rocco, an effort which ran between 1564 and 1588. The series of large-format canvasses that comprise the San Rocco works are characterized by "daring and innovative effects of color and light." The Crucifixion of Christ, taking up an entire wall in the Sala dell' Albergo, is considered one of Tintoretto's greatest works.

In conception and execution, Tintoretto's Christ on the Cross is one of the most unusual and compelling scenes of the crucifixion of the 16th century. Instead of focusing on the individuals directly involved in the event, the artist provides us with a panoramic scene of Golgotha, populated by an astonishingly varied throng -- including soldiers, executioners, horsemen, tradesmen, onlookers, thieves and apostles -- engaged in all sorts of different activities and movements with almost insect-like urgency (visual-arts-cork.com)

The Crucifixion of Christ
Jacopo Tintoretto, 1565

During the time that he was involved with the San Rocco effort, Tintoretto was also engaged (along with Veronese) in the redecoration of the Doge's palace (1574 - 1577).

His crowning achievement was the The Last Supper, done for the Basilica di San Giorgi Maggiore and painted between 1592 and 1594. This composition differs drastically from that of the more traditional composition as represented in Leonardo's effort directly below.

The Last Supper
Jacopo Tintoretto, 1594

The Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci, 1490s

The table is at a diagonal and the central point is the people serving and clearing the table. There is a mix of darkness and light with the light sources being the lamp above and Jesus' aureola. Angels hover above the somewhat spectral scene which is populated with muscular bodies and unnatural Tintoretto poses. According to Gardner (cited in Wikipedia), "The ability of this dramatic scene to engage viewers was well in keeping with Counter-Reformation ideals and the Catholic Church's belief in the didactic nature of religious art."

Self-Portrait
Jacopo Tintoretto, c. 1588

Tintoretto died in 1594 and was survived by his wife and eight children, three of whom were active in the workshop which their father had established.

As viewed by the  National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC), "With Titian and Veronese, Tintoretto (c. 1519 - 1594) was one of the three great painters of the golden age of Venetian art, a bold innovator whose works overwhelmed and sometimes outraged his peers." Giorgi Vasari described him as "swift, resolute, fantastic, and extravagant, and the most extraordinary brain that painting has ever produced." Henry James, considered among the greatest English-language novelists, called Tintoretto "The biggest genius who ever wielded a brush."

©EverythingElse238