THE BIGGEST PAINTING IN THEWORLD TINTORETTO S PARADISO

By the 16th century Venice was one of the richest powers on earth. A city of around 150,000 people that commanded trade routes that stretched from England to the Levant. The Republic could fund vast wars and maintained the largest arsenal in Europe at the time. On the night of the 20th of December 1577, a devastating fire tore through the Doge's Palace, the symbolic heart of the Venetian Republic. It gutted the great council chamber, the largest civic hall in the whole of Europe, destroying centuries of frescoes and paintings. The hall was where the entire governing body of Venice met beneath a painted vision of the city's foundation and divine order in the world. The Republic announced a competition to repaint the far wall of the great council chamber with a vision of heaven vast enough to mirror Venice's claim to eternal stability. Veronese initially won the competition. He and Tintoretto were the two greatest artists in the city at the time. However, Paolo Veronese had more experience painting huge canvases for the city before. But fate intervened. Veronese died suddenly in 1588 and the commission fell, almost inevitably, to Tintoretto. By this point Tintoretto was in his 70s, exhausted, half blind, his hands arthritic, his reputation immense but still edged with controversy. He had spent decades painting at ferocious speed, often undercutting rivals, often working for less money to secure lucrative commissions. Paradiso would be the last great commission Tintoretto ever received. The painting was executed in the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, one of the largest interior spaces in Venice. A huge hall that could fit a painting so vast inside, which is about 100 metres from Tintoretto's front door, as we can see here. Once completed, the enormous canvas was rolled and carried by boat through the canals and hoisted and mounted high above the Doge's throne. Hundreds of figures spiral around Christ and the Virgin, who sit at the centre like a still point in a storm. When Paradiso was finally installed in 1592, it was the largest oil painting on canvas in the world, and it still remains so. Venice stood beneath it in stunned silence. Accounts say that some were in awe, but others were disappointed once it was unveiled. They expected clarity and splendour, but what they got was movement without rest. Venice was one of the most powerful and richest cities in Europe at the time, and standing beneath it, the ruling patrician class of the felt small beneath it. Venice produced some of the most incredible painters in art history, and the great council room at the Doge's palace is a celebration of their painting prowess, and through its wealth, what Venice was able to create. John Ruskin said about Paradiso, I have no hesitation in asserting this picture to be by far the most precious work of art of any kind whatsoever now existing in the world. The great council room itself is quite simply the most beautifully decorated room in the whole world. It is also the largest room in existence that is freestanding and unsupported with columns. Many of Tintoretto's works were too vital to their location or too large in size to be moved, which is why many of them remain based in Venice. He was born in the city and he is the artist most represented in Venice itself. Tintoretto did not live long after the completion and installation of Paradiso. He died in 1594, two years later, having poured the last of himself into that painting. His son, Domenico, continued to maintain and adjust the work, but the vision was complete. Paradiso marked the end of an era. It was the last great civic painting of Renaissance Venice. It is one of the great masterpieces in the whole of world art.