A Wanderer in Venice

by E. V. Lucas

THE CRUCIFIXION (CENTRAL DETAIL)
from the painting by tintoretto
In the Scuola di S. Rocco

The scenes from the Life of Christ around the walls culminate in the wonderful "Crucifixion," in the Refectory leading from this room. This sublime work, which was painted in 1565, when the artist was forty-seven, he considered his masterpiece. It is the greatest single work in Venice, and all Tintoretto is in it, except the sensuous colourist of the "Origin of the Milky Way": all his power, all his thought, all his drama. One should make this room a constant retreat. The more one studies the picture the more real is the scene and the more amazing the achievement. I do not say that one is ever moved as one can be in the presence of great simplicity; one is aware in all Tintoretto's work of a hint of the self-conscious entrepreneur; but never, one feels, was the great man so single-minded as here; never was his desire to impress so deep and genuine. In the mass the picture is overpowering; in detail, to which one comes later, its interest is inexhaustible. As an example of the painter's minute thought, one writer has pointed out that the donkey in the background is eating withered palm leaves—a touch of ironical genius, if you like. Ruskin calls this work the most exquisite instance of the "imaginative penetrative." I reproduce a detail showing the soldiers with the ropes and the group of women at the foot of the cross.

The same room has Tintoretto's noble picture of Christ before Pilate and the fine tragic composition "The Road to Calvary," and on the ceiling is the S. Rocco of which I have already spoken—the germ from which sprang the whole wonderful series.

The story of this, the most Venetian of the Venetian painters and the truest to his native city (for all his life was spent here), may more fittingly be told in this place, near his masterpiece and his portrait (which is just by the door), than elsewhere. He was born in 1518, in the ninth year of our Henry VIII's reign, the son of a dyer, or tintore, named Battista Robusti, and since the young Jacopo Robusti helped his father in his trade he was called the little dyer, or il tintoretto. His father was well to do, and the boy had enough leisure to enable him to copy and to frequent the arcades of S. Mark's Square, under which such artists as were too poor to afford studios were allowed to work.

The greatest name in Venetian art at that time, and indeed still, was that of Titian, and Tintoretto was naturally anxious to become his pupil. Titian was by many years Tintoretto's senior when, at the age of seventeen, the little dyer obtained leave to study under him. The story has it that so masterly were Tintoretto's early drawings that Titian, fearing rivalry, refused to teach him any longer. Whether this be true or not, and one dislikes to think of Titian in this way, Tintoretto left the studio and was thrown upon his own resources and ambition. Fortunately he did not need money: he was able even to form a collection of casts from the antique and also from Michael Angelo, the boy's other idol, who when Tintoretto was seventeen was sixty-one. Thus supplied, Tintoretto practised drawing and painting, day and night, his motto being "Titian's colour and Michael Angelo's form"; and he expressed himself as willing to paint anything anywhere, inside a house or outside, and if necessary for nothing, rather than be idle. Practice was what he believed in: practice and study; and he never tired. All painting worth anything, he held, must be based on sound drawing. "You can buy colours on the Rialto," he would remark, "but drawing can come only by labour." Some say that he was stung by a sarcasm of his Tuscan hero that the Venetians could not draw; be that as it may, he made accurate drawing his corner-stone; and so thorough was he in his study of chiaroscuro that he devised little toy houses in which to manufacture effects of light and shade. One of his first pictures to attract attention was a portrait of himself and his brother illuminated by a lamp.

So passed, in miscellaneous work, even to painting furniture, at least ten years, towards the close of which he painted for the Madonna dell'Orto his earliest important work, "The Last Judgment," which though derived from Michael Angelo yet indicates much personal force. It was in 1548, when he was thirty, that Tintoretto's real chance came, for he was then invited to contribute to the decoration of the Scuola of S. Marco, and for it he produced one of his greatest works, "The Miracle of S. Mark," now in the Accademia. The novelty of its vivid force and drama, together with its power and assurance, although, as I have said, at first disconcerting to the unprepared critics, soon made an impression; spectators were carried off their feet; and Tintoretto's fame was assured. See opposite page 170.

I have not counted the Venetian churches with examples of Tintoretto's genius in them (it would be simpler to count those that have none); but they are many and his industry was enormous. One likes to think of his studio being visited continually by church patrons and prelates anxious to see how their particular commission was getting on.

Tintoretto married in 1558, two years after Shakespeare's birth, his wife being something of an heiress, and in 1562 his eldest son, Domenico, who also became an artist, was born. We have seen how in 1560 Tintoretto competed for the S. Rocco decorations; in 1565 he painted "The Crucifixion"; and he was working on the walls of the Scuola until 1588. In the meantime he worked also for the Doges' Palace, his first picture, that of the Battle of Lepanto, being destroyed with many others in the fire of 1576, first obtaining him as a reward a sinecure post in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, that central office of German merchants and brokers on the façade of which Giorgione and Titian painted their famous (now obliterated) frescoes. Small posts here with no obligations were given to public servants, much as we give Civil List pensions.

Tintoretto's life was very methodical, and was divided strictly between painting and domestic affairs, with few outside diversions. He had settled down in the house which now bears his name and a tablet, close to the church of the Madonna dell'Orto. His children were eight in number, among whom his favourite was Marietta, his eldest daughter. He and she were in fact inseparable, Marietta even donning boy's attire in order to be with him at his work on occasions when as a girl it would have been difficult. Perhaps it is she who so often appears in his pictures as a beautiful sympathetic human girl among so much that is somewhat frigidly Biblical and detached. Among his closer friends were some of the best Venetian intellects, and, among the artists, Andrea Schiavone, who hovers like a ghost about so many painters and their work, Paolo Caliari, known as Veronese, Jacopo da Ponte, or Bassano, and Alessandro Vittoria, the sculptor. He had musician friends, too; for Tintoretto, like Giorgione before him, was devoted to music, and himself played many instruments. He was a man of simple tastes and a quiet and somewhat dry humour; liked home best; chaffed his wife, who was a bit of a manager and had to check his indiscriminate generosity by limiting him to one coin a day; and, there is no doubt whatever, studied his Bible with minuteness. His collected works make the most copious illustrated edition of scripture that exists.