|Birth Year : 1518
Death Year : 1594
Country : Italy
Jacopo Robusti, called Tintoretto-the "little dyer"-because his father
was a dyer by trade, was born in Venice. Tintoretto, who studied for a
short time with Titian and then with Schiavone, admired the color of Titian
and the drawing of Michelangelo.
Tintoretto's intention was to combine color and drawing to create a new
form of art. His personal, dramatic and imaginative painting was to become
increasingly Mannerist in style as it grew more and more fluid through
the years. He painted portraits, classical or mythological works, and religious
canvases using Old Testament themes and subjects. His portraits are restrained
and intimate, and glowing with color. His classical works are distinguished
by their grace and by the dramatic elements in his poetic conceptions.
Tintoretto's inventive genius shows best, however, in the many paintings
he created to decorate the Palace of the Dogs, various Venetian churches,
the Scuolo della Trinita, and the Scuolo di San Rocco. In these enormous
compositions, some of them thirty feet long, he created mysterious scenes
full of unearthly light, placed in realistic historical landscapes or elaborate
court interiors-all crowded with figures in extraordinary positions, carefully
dressed in textured fabrics. In his great canvases on the life of Christ
for the Scuolo di San Rocco, Tintoretto's personal vision reached its culmination.
In an explosive and passionate expression of the inherent drama of the
story, Tintoretto reveals himself as both realist and dreamer. Striking
effects are achieved through foreshortened perspective, multiple sources
of light, and human figures-exalted, tormented, or struggling with the
forces of nature and the spirit. His separation from traditional Renaissance
concepts strongly influenced the Mannerists who were to follow.
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