The Haarlem School, 1470 - 1500: The first phase of the flowering of Dutch art

As my writings on the topic has shown, the flowering of Low Countries painting began with the Early Netherlandish (Flemish Primitives) School and the work of Jan van Eyck. Most of the prominent painters of the period were co-resident with their patrons in the cities of Bruges, Ghent, and Brussels. Antwerp gained prominence after Maximilian I moved foreign merchants to that city from Bruges as retaliation for its actions against his regency and its painting school -- The Antwerp Mannerists -- gained prominence as a result. Both of these movements were located in the southern tier of principalities that comprised the Burgundian Circle.

We know of the Masters of the Dutch Golden Age, but who/what were the forerunners of Rembrandt and Hals and Vermeer? To whom do they owe their exalted positions and where/when did that/those person(s) emerge?

Wilhelm Valentiner (The Art of the Low Countries, Doubleday, 1914) identifies Haarlem and Leyden (now Leiden) as the birthplaces of Dutch painting: "Only in those two cities did coherent activity of painting exist shortly before and after the year 1500" though, as he states, Haarlem preceded Leyden by fully a generation.

In Valentiner's view, it is difficult to separate early Dutch painting from its Flemish counterpart:

• Politically the north and south were regarded as a single unit
• Charles the Bold ruled both areas as a unit until his death in 1477
• Rulers resided at Brughes, Ghent, and Brussels
• The van Eycks and van der Weyden resided in those cities also
• In all areas of culture, Holland was affiliated with Flanders and, through Flanders, with Burgundy.

After the untimely death of Charles' daughter Mary, rulership of the Low Countries passed to the Habsburgs and the region became a part of the Holy Roman Empire. By this time the Flemish Primitives as a movement was becoming long in the tooth:

• The struggle with Spain forced art to struggle for its life
• Italian influences were forcing its way onto the Flemish art scene
• Only a limited number of painters (Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Antonio Moro, for example) were keeping the national flag flying.

This state of affairs provided an opening for the emergence of Dutch art and the first phase of its flowering in the period 1470 - 1530. Valentiner divides this flowering into two sub-phases: (i) the last third of the 15th century and (ii) the first third of the 16th century. The former was dominated by the Haarlem School and the latter by the Leyden School.

Last Third of the 15th Century
The Haarlem School was not as well-defined as was the Leyden School. The notable painters  associated with the school are Dirk Bouts, Albert van Ouwater, and Geertgen tot Sint Jans, with notable mentions for Hieronymus Bosch and the Master of Virgo inter Virgines. The problem for this school is that while most of the painters were born in Haarlem, many of them did not actually reside in Haarlem during their productive years; and many of them did not even know each other.

For example, Dirk Bouts (c. 1415 - 1475), the first "early-Dutch" painter of importance, was born in Haarlem but it is not clear where he received his training and he eventually settled, and did most of his painting, in Louvain in Flanders. He was lauded for his use of color and technical skill and has been referred to as the father of landscaping, a noted specialty of Haarlem painters. Art historians can find no definitive linkage between Bouts and Haarlem (beyond his birth) or Bouts and any painters who worked in Haarlem subsequently but he is described by van Mander -- writing in 1604 -- as the founder of the Haarlem School along with Ouwater and Geertgen tot Sint Jans.

In his Lamentation (c. 1460) below, one can see the vivd color and landscape for which he is noted but there is also a stiffness and elongation associated with the body of Jesus that is somewhat unsettling. His Portrait of a Man (1462) shows us his capability for this genre but still provides us a peek at the landscape beyond the window.

Lamentation, c. 1460
Dirk Bouts

Portrait of a Man, 1462
Dirk Bouts

Albert van Ouwater (c. 1410/15 - 1475) was probably born in Oudewater, a town in the Utrecht region. Very little is known about him beyond Mandel's claim of him being a reputable painter and one of the founders of the Haarlem School. The only piece of work widely attributed to him is Raising of Lazarus (1445). This picture has the bright colors that are one of the hallmarks of Haarlem-School paintings, but does not provide a landscape in the background. The composition, though having fewer subjects than does Bouts' Lamentation, has the same three-element grouping of the subjects.

Raising of Lazarus, 1445
Albert van Ouwater

Geertgen tot Sint Jans (1455/1645 - 1485/95) was an outstanding painter active in Haarlem in his day. His name means Little Gerard of of the Brethren of St John and he painted his only known work for the Monastery of the Brothers where he lived as a lay individual. He is identified by the Rijksmuseum as a founder of Northern Netherlandish art who painted with "exceptional quality" and in "fine and surprisingly precise detail." His only known work was a Triptych of the crucifixion  which was painted for the church of the Brethren. Two large panels -- The Lamentation of Christ and The Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist -- survive.

Lamentation of Christ is composed along a diagonal with the bright colors and landscape that are hallmarks of the Haarlem School. The Legend of the Relics of St John is also constructed along diagonals but in a layered fashion. The subjects are grouped within those layers and are backed up by a landscaped background.

Lamentation of Christ
Geertgen tot Sint Jans

The Legend of the Relics of St. John the Baptist
Geertgen tot Sint Jans

Hieronymus Bosch (1474 - 1516) -- "one of the most enigmatic artist of his epoch" -- and Master of the Virgo inter Virgines were two painters active in the Northern Netherlands in the same time frame but neither were associated with the Haarlem School. Bosch was born in the town of s'Hertogensbosch and is famous for the fantastic and disturbing details of his panel pictures, works which bring to mind modern-era surrealists. His most famous work is the Garden of Earthly Delights. It is also said that his work did exert some influence on Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The Garden of Early Delights, 1490 - 1510
Hieronymus Bosch

According to museothyssen.com, the Master of the Virgo inter Virgines -- a name given to the painter by Max Friedlander based on an altarpiece of the Virgin with four Saints -- has been identified as Dirc Jansz, a painter active in Delft between 1474 and 1495. This artist has been described by Friedlander as the "most elegant and realistic of the Early Netherlandish painters" and by museothyssen.com as having a style that was "notably individual and his figures are expressive to the point of hyper-realism.

The Entombment of Christ, c. 1490
Master of the Virgo inter Virgines

I will cover the Leyden School in a follow-up post.

©EverythingElse238

History of The Low Countries:1548 - 1567

My most recent post on the history of the Low Countries ended with Charles V's acquisition of the Duchy of Guelders in 1543, bringing the number of provinces under his control to 17. According to the Burgundian Treaty of 1548, these provinces which, with the exception of Flanders and Artois, had been individual fiefdoms in the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire, were moved into the Burgundian Circle (Imperial Circles were administrative groupings within the Holy Roman Empire with responsibility for taxation and the common defense of their component elements.). This change increased the territorial scope of the Burgundian Circle but also increased its tax obligations.

In 1549 Charles issued an edict (Pragmatic Sanction) which coalesced the 17 provinces into an "indivisible territory" but with each retaining its "existing customs, laws, and forms of government."

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 

Religious Issues
Charles V's preference was for a realm united under a single religion: Catholicism. The corruption in the church and doctrinal issues created a schism between reformers and doctrinal Catholics. Charles opposed this threat to his vision and, from 1521 onwards, published placards forbidding the new Protestant ideas. The first instance of state violence against the Reformation in the Low Countries was the case of a Lutheran Protestant being burnt at the stake in The Hague in 1525.

From 1550 onwards, Calvinism (the branch of Protestantism following the "theological traditions and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians") took hold in the Low Countries, first with a foothold in the south in the Walloon province and then spreading north.

Unlike the mostly agrarian societies in Europe at this time, the Low Countries were wealthy, urbanized, educated and tolerant. The wealth of the region was derived from trade and industry (the weaver in Flanders transforming wool from England into cloth which could be shipped out and sold in distant markets). Information about the Reformation was broadly available and consumed within this tolerant population.

As Protestantism spread through the Provinces, the Habsburgs responded with burnings at the stake, beheadings, and drownings. Fear of persecution caused many Protestants to flee to England and Germany where they established refugee churches. These churches began to adopt the structural approaches of Calvinism and then fed them back into the Netherlands Protestant ecosystem.

Charles V ruled until abdicating in 1556 and dividing his empire between his younger brother Ferdinand (the Habsburg monarchy) and his son Philip (Spain and the Low Countries). Over time, the citizens of the Low Countries grew to dislike the new rulership arrangement. Charles was born in Ghent and was very attached to the Low Countries; he spent much of his time in Brussels. Philip, on the other hand, was not Burgundian, did not speak Flemish, was viewed as being cold and arrogant, and never returned to the Low Countries after 1559. His sister Margaret of Parma ruled the Low Countries as Governor on his behalf.

Philip II

Philip continued his father's efforts to restrict religious freedom; he felt that it was his duty to defend the Catholic Counter-Reformation. In 1563 he promulgated the decrees of the Council of Trent (19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church ... "highly important for its sweeping decrees on self-reform and for its dogmatic definitions that clarified virtually every doctrine contested by the Protestants") for all his realm and attempted to establish the Inquisition in Flanders.

In 1566 the nobility of the the Burgundian Circle presented a formal complaint to Margaret de Palma  demanding the abolition of the Inquisition and respect for religious freedom.

Politics
In the Charles period, the provinces had a fair amount of autonomy. In the Philip reign, this autonomy was diminished by the appointment of Governors for each of the provinces and, invariably, the Governor was foreign to the province. The privileges to which these territories had become accustomed were infringed upon. The nobles felt that the government should be administered jointly by the king, the nobility, and the States-General; the king's interpretation differed.

But the issues were not only directed upwards; the Burgundian Circle was also bedeviled by a strong north-south divide:

• The south was apathetic to a united Netherlands
• The south did not want to see its taxes paying for activities in the north
• The north resented the large number of southerners who were given prominent leadership positions in the provinces
• The provincial governor was generally fro the south.

The Iconoclastic Riots
Increased productivity in the Low Countries had resulted in excess labor among artisans and day laborers. These unemployed individuals were at wits end and susceptible to the message of the Calvinists.

During the 16th century, the Low Countries had become dependent on Polish grain which was normally shipped through the Baltic. A war between Sweden and Denmark interrupted supplies and led to famine conditions in urbanized areas of the Low Countries..

In the late summer of 1566 Calvinists ministers drew large numbers of common folks to outdoor prayer meetings. In August, Calvinist mobs took over churches (seen as the bastion of the rich) and destroyed Catholic statues, stained glass windows, and paintings.  This destruction of Catholic Church icons spread throughout the Low Countries and became a fundamental problem for the King and the Pope.

First Embers of Rebellion
Seeking to capitalize on the disarray brought about by the riots, Count Brederode, at that time the leader of the Calvinists, raised an army in March of 1567 and advanced on Zeeland. Margaret of Parma (The Governor of the Low Countries) called all of the nobles together to swear an oath of loyalty to the King. With the exception of William of Orange, they all signed. Brederode's force was defeated on the outskirts of Zeeland and he fled to Germany. Fearing retribution from Brederode's action, William of Orange and a number of lesser nobles also fled to Germany.

The Duke of Alva was appointed Governor of Netherlands and dispatched thereto to re-assert the prerogatives of the Crown and the Church.

©Everythingelse238

Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism at the Frist Art Museum

I visited the Brooklyn Museum exhibition Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving earlier this year and became an even greater fan of the artist's work as a result. A recent visit to the Frist Museum (Nashville, TN) provided visibility into Kahlo works that I had not seen previously but also allowed me to see the artist within the context of the Mexican Modernism School and the artists plying their trade therein. The Frist exhibition is titled Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism and is drawn from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Modern Mexican art. The exhibition runs through September 2nd.

The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth
(Mexico), Diego, Me, and Senor Xolotl, 1949
Frida Kahlo

Mexican Modernism arose as a result of the post-revolution Mexican regime seeking to use culture as a means to unite the nation and visual artists efforts to use their craft in furtherance of this goal. The chart below graphically illustrates the road to this new Mexican art school.

The Jacques and Natasha Gelman collection is one of the most extensive collections of Mexican Modernist art in the world. Jacques and Natasha Gelman were both born in Eastern Europe but met and married in Mexico City. After the outbreak of the World War II, they made Mexico their home.

They began collecting art soon after their marriage, commissioning and buying works from the leading Mexican artists. They became friendly with most of the artists, acting sometimes as patrons and other times as promoters. Jacques died in 1986 and Natasha 12 years later. Natasha had continued adding to the collection after Jacques' death and the collection continues to be expanded post her death.

The stars of the exhibition are the husband and wife team Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.

Rivera's bombastic personality, revolutionary politics, and inspiring murals made him a celebrity. Although at one time he overshadowed his equally talented wife, Kahlo's fame has far outstripped Rivera's since his death. The raw emotion of her paintings still resonates today, and her intense self-portraits have made her face familiar throughout the globe.

In addition to works from these two personalities, the exhibition includes paintings from Lola Álvarez Bravo, María Izquerdo, David Alfano Sisqueiros, Rufino Tamayo, and others. The exhibition also includes a large number of photographs and garments and jewelry akin to those worn by Frida during her time in the limelight.

While murals are a key part of the Mexican Modernism movement, only one example of this genre is included in the exhibition and that is a reproduction of Diego Rivera's The History of Mexico. Diego began painting this mural in 1929, the year he married Frida. This mural is emplaced in the main stairway of the National Palace in Mexico City and cemented Rivera's place as the foremost Mexican muralist. The mural chronicles the history of the country with the Aztec culture at the base. The topmost layer depicts the country's future.

The History of Mexico (detail)
Diego Rivera, 1929 - 1935

The remaining Diego Rivera works in the exhibition combine to show the range of his talent beyond murals. From a blending of the human and botanical (Landscape with Cacti, 1931), to portraiture (Portrait of Cristina Kahlo, 1934), to nude studies (Nude with Long Hair (Dolores Olmedo), 1930; Nude with Beads (Frida Kahlo), 1930), to Cubism (The Last Hour, 1915), to genre (The Healer, 1943), Diego's range is phenomenal and his work captivating. The most stunning of his efforts in the exhibition though were Portrait of Natasha Gelman, Sunflowers, and Calla Lily Vendor.

In 1943, Jacques Gelman commissioned Diego Rivera to paint a portrait of his wife; the below work was the result.

Portrait of Natasha Gelman, 1943
Diego Rivera

The portrait lies along a perfect diagonal line with the subject framed at the head by upright Calla Lilies and the litheness of the lower extremities accentuated by horizontal lilies.The shape of the gown aligns with the shape of the lilies. The red hair and bold stare of the sitter contrasts with the other major elements of the picture.

The Calla Lilies in this picture meshes nicely with the mass of lilies in the Calla Lily Vendor and they contrast, both in color and subject, with Sunflowers which, in this exhibition, is positioned between the two.

Sunflowers, 1943
Diego Rivera

Calla Lily Vendor, 1943
Diego Rivera

Frida Kahlo had an intimate relationship with pain throughout her life; and many of her paintings reported on this pain or reflected on its effects. Frida had polio at an early age, resulting in one leg being shorter than the other. She had a catastrophic accident when she was 18 and suffered chronic, debilitating pain for the rest of her life. She married Diego Rivera in 1929 and suffered through multiple episodes of his unfaithfulness, including with her sister. Frida suffered a miscarriage, probably a result of internal damage suffered during the accident when she was 18 years old,

Frida's paintings are raw and emotion-filled but they are also steeped in Mexicanidad, a key ingredient of Mexican Modernism.

Diego on my Mind (Self-Portrait as Tehuana), 1943
Frida Kahlo

Self-Portrait with Necklace, 1933
Frida Kahlo

Self-Portrait on Bed, 1937
Frida Kahlo

Self-Portrait with Red and Gold Dress, 1941
Frida Kahlo

Frida and the Miscarriage, 1932
Frida Kahlo

The third leg of Mexican Modernism was photography and that mode is well represented in this exhibition. Photographs (black and white) serve as separators for the main segments of the exhibition. For example, there are a set of pictures between the first works and the Diego Rivera paintings and another set of photographs between the diego and the Frida works. The pictures between the Frida and Kahlo paintings are pictures featuring the husband and wife in various settings and poses.

I have been studying the work of Frida Kahlo intensively over the course of the past year and this exhibition allowed me to add to that knowledge base. But it also framed her work within this broader school and given me a path for further investigation.

©EverythingElse238

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

The Mannerist School (1530 - 1600)

In its description of the subject of its exhibition Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice, the National Gallery of Art states "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." His contemporary (and chronicler of the lives of the great artists) 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."

Venice born and bred, Tintoretto painted according to the precepts of the Mannerist school. Before discussing the artist, and the aforementioned exhibition, I provide an overview of Mannerism.

Mannerism, as described herein, is distinctly different from the Antwerp Mannerism that I have previously described. It emerged at the end of the High Renaissance and manifested as a "stylized twist" on Renaissance classicism. The name derives from the Italian word maniera which translates as "style" or "manner." Mannerism is viewed as a bridge between High Renaissance and Baroque. The chart below shows both the context and geographic distribution of the Mannerist school.

As stated by the Tate Museum,

Rather than adopting the harmonious ideals associated with Raphael and Michelangelo, Mannerists went a step further to create highly artificial compositions which showed off their techniques and skills in manipulating compositional elements to create a sense of sophisticated elegance.

Characteristics
The characteristics of Mannerism are as follows (mymodernmuseum.com, visual-arts-cork.com):

• Exaggerated figures -- this school rejected realistic proportions and, instead, rendered figures with impossibly elongated limbs and oddly positioned bodies. Two examples are shown below. Note the extended neck of Parmigianino's Madonna and some of the unnatural contortions in Tintoretto's The Last Supper.

Madonna of the Long Neck
Parmigianino, 1530 - 33

The Last Supper
Tintoretto, c. 1563/1564

• Elaborate decoration wherein the canvas is covered in an overwhelming abundance of decorative elements

Vertumnus
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, c. 1590 - 91

• Artificial color -- some of the mannerists abandoned the naturalistic colors of the high Renaissance painters and employed garish tones. See below, for example, Pontormi's Deposition from the Cross.

The Deposition from the Cross
Jacopo Pontormi, 1525 - 28

• Pictorial space filled by foreground figures (see Pontormi's Deposition above)
• The use of light from a single source sometimes abandoned in favor of contrasting effects of light and dark

Origins
The figure above (Mannerism in Context) shows a Florentine origin for the school and associates some of the greatest masters with Mannerism. The figure below shows examples of works by Raphael (The Transfiguration) and Michelangelo (The Last Judgment) which are considered Mannerist or Mannerist-leaning. The accompanying Fiorentino effort (Descent from the Cross) is clearly Mannerist and was also created in Florence. Note the similarities between Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Origins figure and Tintoretto's oil sketch for his Paradiso painting that immediately follows.

Paradise
Tintoretto, c. 1583

But it was in Rome that Mannerism truly blossomed with Parmigianino and many of Raphael's students collaborating to push the genre forward. The success of the movement in Rome led to later Florentine painters such as Vasari (with limited success) and Salviati (much more so) adapting the style. The Rome school also inspired Mannerism's adoption in many major European cities.

Mannerism never conquered the art space in the way that the Renaissance did. Rather, many artists continued to paint in the High Renaissance style alongside the Mannerist painters. Further, Mannerism was viewed with a jaundiced eye by the Catholic Church which was in the midst of the Counter Reformation battle and did not view the style as advancing its goals. In that the Catholic Church was the leading fine-art patron, its skepticism eventually led to the demise of the school.

©EverythingElse238

The Antwerp Mannerists (1500 - 1530) painting style

With the death of Charles the Bold in 1477, many of the early Netherlandish painters lost the main source of their patronage. Further, their center of operations -- Bruges -- had begun to lose out to the city of Antwerp in the battle for economic dominance, further depleting the pool of patrons.

By the turn of the century, Antwerp had become the main trading and commercial center of the Low Countries. This economic vibrancy attracted many artists and resulted in increased membership in art guilds and the establishment of a large number of painting and sculpture workshops.

The acclaim of the early Netherlandish works had created a demand for paintings from the Low Countries and the Antwerp painters exploited the city's burgeoning export infrastructure and the multitude of workshops to meet those needs.

The style of painting emerging from this period (1500 - 1530) was first called Antwerp Mannerist by the art historian Max Friedlander in 1915 and the nomenclature has stuck. These paintings were most likely mass-produced to meet market demands:

1. Except in a few cases, the paintings are not associated with a specific, named artist. "The very anonymity of these artists point to their participation in mass production and formulaic repetition of figures, settings, motifs, and favorite subjects." Some of the known artists are Jan de Beer, Master of 1518, the early works of Jan Gossaert, and Adriaen Isenbrandt.
2. Subject matter is tightly circumscribed with Adoration of the Magi and Nativity scenes being dominant.

Some characteristics of the style are as follows:

• Attempts to incorporate both Flemish and Italian traditions into the composition
• Dramatic gestures and figural arrangements
• Lavish costumes
• Vivid, sometimes abrasive, coloristic effects
• Night scenes 
• Scenes crowded with figures.

A few examples of this style are provided below for illustrative purposes.

The Adoration of the Magi

Netherlandish (Antwerp Mannerist) Painter

Adoration of the Magi

Anonymous Antwerp Mannerist

The Nativity

Jan de Beer

King Solomon receiving the Queen of Sheba

Antwerp Mannerist

While Antwerp has been central to this style, its presence has also been observed in France, Germany, and Southern and Northern Netherlands. It should be noted that this style is unrelated to the Mannerist style associated with the High Renaissance in Italy.

©EverythingElse238