Artist Spotlight Tintoretto

Welcome back to the Accessible Art History YouTube channel. This video is going to be another addition to our Artist Spotlight series. We're going to be covering the amazing Mannerist artist Jacopo Robusti. He is better known by his nickname, Tintoretto, and for his use of drama and perspective. To understand his style, we're going to examine three of his most famous works. Before we analyze his works, though, we need to learn about his life. Born in the fall of 1518, Jacopo Robusti was the oldest of 21 children. His father, Giovanni, worked as a cloth dyer. This is most likely where he got his nickname, as it means little dyer or son of the dyer in Italian. Not much is known about his early childhood or his days as a young artist. There are some records that indicate that Tintoretto worked for a short time for Titian. However, this arrangement didn't last and he eventually left to teach himself. Eventually, Tintoretto's style developed and was described as combining Michelangelo's figures with Titian's use of color. He also focused on creating a narrative for his works to explore. Tintoretto spent the majority of his life living and working in Venice. His paintings can be seen in churches and public buildings around the city. Due to this incredible output and the fact that he painted with vigor, his contemporaries also called him il furioso, the furious. According to records, he was quite passionate about his artistry and about using his wages to support the poor. On May 31st, 1594, Tintoretto died after a few weeks of illness. He was 75 years old. His oldest daughter and fellow artist, Marietta, had died a few years earlier in childbirth and so he was buried next to her in the church of Madonna dell'Orto, in his beloved city of Venice. Today, Tintoretto is known for becoming a bridge between the Renaissance and Baroque periods. We are going to explore how he achieved this by using three of his key works. Il Paradiso is perhaps Tintoretto's most famous work. It is located in the main hall of the Doges, which is Venetian Italian for Duke, palace in Venice. In 1577, a fire destroyed the 14th century painting there, so the Doge held a contest for a new design. Paolo Bernese won, but he died before work could even begin. So, Tintoretto stepped in and created this masterpiece. He worked on it between 1588 and 1592. The first thing viewers notice about this work is its size. It's absolutely massive at 22 by 7 meters. That's 72 feet by 23 feet. This painting features Tintoretto's ideal of heaven. The Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ are in the center. They're surrounded by a golden halo and sit on a throne made of cherubs. To the left, the angel Gabriel flies towards Mary with a lily in his hand. This is an allusion to the Annunciation. The rest of the work is taken up by dozens of figures of saints and the resurrected dead. Tintoretto painted this work using an upward tilted perspective. This not only allows the viewer to see the entire scene easily, because it's such a large piece, but also places the holiest figures above them. That reinforces the idea of heaven and creates a narrative. The Last Supper was one of Tintoretto's favorite subjects. In fact, he painted it on nine separate occasions. This one is located in the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. The most remarkable thing about this work is the diagonal perspective. Normally, this story is told with a frontal point of view. This was due to the president sent by Leonardo da Vinci in 1495. However, Tintoretto shifts the perspective and approaches the story from the side. This puts the focus on the secondary characters in the scene, instead of on Christ and his disciples. In addition, it creates asymmetry, a rare thing in art at this point. Adding to the drama, there are only two sources of light, and the rest of the work is shrouded in shadow. A lamp illuminates the left side of the painting, while Jesus' halo lights up the right. By doing this, Tintoretto creates a narrative for the viewer to take in and invites them to become an active participant in the scene. The final work of Tintoretto's that we're going to examine breaks away from Christianity. He painted The Origins of the Milky Way in 1575, and it is now in the collection of the National Gallery in London. In this story, Zeus attempts to have his illegitimate son Hercules feed from Hera's breast in order to gain immortality. She wakes up from the suckling and pushes the baby away. Her breast milk squirts up into the sky, creating the stars of the Milky Way. The intense colors of this work mark it solidly in the Venetian school of art. Tintoretto uses reds, pinks, blues, and greens to create an ethereal scene. He also uses a strong sense of dynamic movement along a diagonal plane to create a dramatic narrative. The viewer can also see a bit of Michelangelo's impact on the muscular, full body of Hera. Tintoretto truly brings this myth to life. Tintoretto is one of the great artists of the Mannerist period. His use of color, diagonal lines, and light create dramatic narratives that resonate with his viewers. It is almost a changing of the rules that creates his own type of visual language. There are many more of his works available for study online, so make sure to check them out.