[I]
Sometime in the second decade of the sixteenth century there was born to one Battista Robusti, cloth-dyer of Venice, a boy to whom the name Jacopo was given. We know nothing of the childhood of the lad who, because his father's business was that of a "tintore" or dyer, was known to his companions as Tintoretto. But one, Carlo Ridolfi, who was born about the time when Tintoretto died, towards the close of the sixteenth century, tells us that the "little dyer," whose name is written so large in the history of sixteenth-century art, started very early to practise drawing, and used his father's working material in order to give his productions the colour they seemed to need. That he must have shown signs of uncommon talent at an early age is shown by the fact that he found his way to the studio or workshop of Titian, the greatest painter in the Venice of his time; a man whose position enabled him to require, from all who sought to become his pupils, a measure of proficiency that promised to make their work useful when the demands of patrons were more than one painter could hope to satisfy unaided. Only the lad who possessed undeniable gifts or powerful patrons could find a place in the workshop of the greatest painter of the day, and Tintoretto was quite without patronage. The story-tellers of the period assure us that pupil and master quarrelled, they even hint that Titian was jealous of the young student, and this of course is not impossible because we have plenty of instances on record in which jealousy has been found thriving within the studio. Then, again, clever lads are not always tactful, and an unbridled tongue may make hosts of enemies, and destroy the atmosphere of repose in which alone good work is possible. A brilliant painter might well have been a little intolerant of precocious pupils.
Entering into detail, Ridolfi tells us in his life of the painter that when Tintoretto was at work in Titian's studio he copied some of the master's pictures so cleverly that Titian told one of his other pupils to send the boy away, and Robusti was dismissed from the studio without explanation. It is a significant fact, at the service of those who accept the theory of jealousy, that throughout the years when Tintoretto was struggling for recognition Titian had no eyes for his young pupil's work, and was only led to praise a picture by seeing it unsigned and exhibited in the open. There were times when the elder painter could have placed commissions in the young man's way, but he seems to have preferred to help others, of whom Paolo Cagliari, known as the Veronese, is the only man whose work retains a large place in the public eye. But clearly Titian must have had some other motive as well as jealousy, for he himself had more work than he could possibly do, and the help of a clever pupil like Tintoretto would have been valuable in times of great stress when patrons were waxing impatient. Whatever the other motive may have been it escaped Ridolfi, and no other record of the early days is extant.
PLATE II.—THE DOGE ALVISE MOCENIGO
This portrait, to be seen to-day in the Accademia at Venice, is one of the most striking of the long series of the leading citizens of the Republic. Tintoretto painted many of these portraits, for he was for many years one of the official painters to the Republic. Venice holds the best of this work.
Looking at the work of the "little dyer" it seems reasonable to suggest that he acted as all great painters before and after him have done—that is to say, he sought what was best in the work around him, and having collected all the material he required, evolved his own artistic personality from a judicious selection. Artists do not come into this world ready made, and the period of the making depends upon the man. For many, life is not long enough, and it is one of the tragedies of art work that the mastery over technical difficulties is sometimes delayed until the eye is becoming dim and the hand uncertain. From the very first we find that Tintoretto was immersed in the affairs of his art, that he could not hold his hand, that he laboured with feverish energy, that no commission was despised, and that nothing was too large or too small for him to undertake. Throughout the days of his youth his industry was devoted entirely to mastering the difficult technique of his work, until foreshortening, perspective, correct anatomy, relative values, light, shadow, and relief, were his subjects rather than his masters. Then he was prepared to begin where so many great Venetian artists had left off.
It had been a reproach to the Venetians that for all their colour they were poor draughtsmen. Needless to add that this rebuke came from the schools of Florence, where men were more concerned with correct drawing than rich colour. But Tintoretto removed the reproach from Venice, and, while he learned to draw in fashion that left the Florentine schools nothing to teach, he followed Gian Bellini and Titian into the domain of colour, and his work to-day reveals many of the best qualities of the two Italian schools of art in happy combination. When he was fully equipped according to his lights, and was prepared to enter into competition with the men around him, Tintoretto set out boldly to achieve the best results—he knew what he could do even if he did not know what the accomplishment was worth. It was not a part of his mental attitude to rest content with work done for those who sought the service of second-class men. "The form of Michelangelo, the colour of Titian;" these were the achievements he sought to realise, and he wrote these words on the wall of his workshop in the same spirit as that in which pious Hebrews still put the declaration of their faith upon the doorposts of their houses. He understood that Michelangelo Buonarotti had said the last word in form, and that Titian had gone as far in the direction of colour. Not until he was armed with patiently acquired skill, extraordinary natural aptitude, and a temperament that could not be satisfied with anything less than complete success, did he feel prepared to take the world of art by storm, and then he had put to the credit of his record a measure of hard work that no other painter could show.
For the first few years Tintoretto had to strive in the ranks of men who, whatever their gifts, had more chances than he. Venice was full of artists; commissions did not always depend upon merit, influence and favour counted for a great deal, and the clever son of an obscure dye-worker could hardly reach the goal of his ambitions without a long period of waiting. Things had altered from the days when Titian came from the mountains of Cadore to the studio of Gian Bellini, there was now so much talent in Venice that a man might have good gifts and yet go hungry. Art had widened its boundaries, developed the importance of its expression and the scope of its appeal, offering wealth and reputation to those who could succeed in impressing the statesman, churchman, or conqueror who held the patronage of the arts to be one of the special privileges of their state.