Tintoretto |
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Tintoretto (Jacopo
Robusti) 1518-1594
1518 - Born in Venice the eldest of 21 children. His father, Giovanni, was
a dyer, or tintore; hence the son’s nickname of Tintoretto, little dyer.
The family originated from Brescia, in Lombardy, then part of the Republic of Venice. In
childhood little Jacopo began daubing with dye on his father’s walls.
c.1533 - His father takes him to Titian’s studio to see if he can be trained as an artist.
According to legend he was sent away 10 days later, after Titian noticed and
disapproved of the rapidity of his drawings. From this time Tintoretto studied
independently retaining his admiration for Titian though their relations remain
distant. He famously placed over his studio door the inscription: Il disegno
di Michelangelo, il colorito di Tiziano (the drawing of Michelangelo and
Titian’s color).
He studied from models of
Michelangelo's famous sculptures from the San Lorenzo sacristy Dawn, Noon,
Twilight and Night, and became expert in modelling in wax and
clay figurines which he set up in wooden boxes and then lit with candles to
provide him with a staged space, figures and shadows to transpose unto canvas,
working as much at night as in the day. He developed a method of painting very
quickly by priming his canvases in flat dark tones (gray-green, brown, slate
gray), dividing the composition into basic tonal areas Upon these he rapidly
sketched his figures in lighter tones and bright colors using the background to
provide him shadows and relief. He used
a wide square brush introduced into Venetian painting by Titian for painting
draperies, leading the English 19c art critic John Ruskin to accuse him of
painting with a broom.
1548 - Commissioned to paint four
pictures for the Scuola di San Marco illustrating episodes from the life of
Saint Mark including Saint Mark Freeing the Slave.
1550 -
Married Faustina de Vescovi (or Episcopi ?), daughter of a Venetian
nobleman and a prominent member of the Scuola di San Marco. Faustina
bore him several children, probably two sons and five daughters. The mother of
Tintoretto’s favorite daughter Marietta, who became a
painter herself, was probably a German woman, who had an affair with
Jacopo before his marriage to Faustina.
1560 – Next great commission were the
three great rooms of the Scuola San Rocco started in 1560 and finally finished
in 1587. Asked to send in a study for San Rocco received into Heaven
along with other Venetian painters, Tintoreto quickly came up with a complete
picture to the fury of his competitors. To counter their protests he made a
gift of his painting to the Scuola who by it by-laws could not refuse it,
receiving thereby the rest of the commission for the walls and ceilings of the
3 rooms. At this time he was also commissioned to paint the great historical
pictures a for the halls of the Doge’s palace.
1565 – Paints the vast Crucifixion, for the Scuola for the sum of 250 ducats. was paid.
1576 - Presents gratis another
centre-piece - that for the ceiling of the great hall, representing the Plague
of Serpents. By the end of the commission he received the great sum of 2447
ducats.
1588 – Receives the commission to paint one of the largest paintings in
history the Paradise for the Council chamber of the Doge’s palace.
1592 – Becomes member of the Scuola dei Mercanti.
1594 – Dies and is buried in church of the Madonna dell’Orto by the side of
his fvorite daughter Maria who had died young at 30. Through his life he had
scarsely travelled outside his beloved native city.
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