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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42528 ***
+
+Transcriber's Note: Table of Contents added by transcriber.
+
+
+
+
+    MASTERPIECES
+    IN COLOUR
+    EDITED BY
+    T. LEMAN HARE
+
+
+    TINTORETTO
+
+
+
+
+IN THE SAME SERIES
+
+
+    ARTIST.             AUTHOR.
+
+    VELAZQUEZ.          S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    REYNOLDS.           S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    TURNER.             C. LEWIS HIND.
+    ROMNEY.             C. LEWIS HIND.
+    GREUZE.             ALYS EYRE MACKLIN.
+    BOTTICELLI.         HENRY B. BINNS.
+    ROSSETTI.           LUCIEN PISSARRO.
+    BELLINI.            GEORGE HAY.
+    FRA ANGELICO.       JAMES MASON.
+    REMBRANDT.          JOSEF ISRAELS.
+    LEIGHTON.           A. LYS BALDRY.
+    RAPHAEL.            PAUL G. KONODY.
+    HOLMAN HUNT.        MARY E. COLERIDGE.
+    TITIAN.             S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    MILLAIS.            A. LYS BALDRY.
+    CARLO DOLCI.        GEORGE HAY.
+    GAINSBOROUGH.       MAX ROTHSCHILD.
+    TINTORETTO.         S. L. BENSUSAN.
+
+
+    _In Preparation_
+
+    VAN DYCK.             PERCY M. TURNER.
+    FRANZ HALS.           T. E. STALEY.
+    WHISTLER.             J. MARTIN WOOD.
+    LEONARDO DA VINCI.    M. W. BROCKWELL.
+    RUBENS.               S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    BURNE-JONES.          A. LYS BALDRY.
+    J. F. MILLET.         PERCY M. TURNER.
+    LUINI.                JAMES MASON.
+    CHARDIN.              PAUL G. KONODY.
+    FRAGONARD.            HALDANE M'FALL.
+    HOLBEIN.              S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    BOUCHER.              HALDANE M'FALL.
+    VIGÉE LE BRUN.        HALDANE M'FALL.
+    WATTEAU.              LEWIS HIND.
+    MURILLO.              S. L. BENSUSAN.
+
+    AND OTHERS.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE I.--A KNIGHT OF MALTA. Frontispiece (From Hampton
+Court)
+
+This portrait (note the Maltese crosses on the cloak) is a splendid
+example of Tintoretto's gifts as a portrait painter. It should be
+remembered that three or four hundred years have helped the restorer's
+arts to spoil much of the painter's work.]
+
+
+
+
+    TINTORETTO
+
+    BY S. L. BENSUSAN
+
+    ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
+    REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR
+
+    [Illustration: IN SEMPITERNUM.]
+
+    LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
+    NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I.                                                 9
+
+      II.                                                32
+
+     III.                                                68
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    Plate
+       I. A Knight Of Malta                    Frontispiece
+              From Hampton Court
+
+                                                       Page
+      II. The Doge Alvise Mocenigo                       14
+              In the Venetian Academy
+
+     III. The origin of "The Milky Way"                  24
+              In the National Gallery
+
+      IV. St. George and the Dragon                      34
+              In the National Gallery
+
+       V. The Procurator Battista Morosini               40
+              In the Venetian Academy
+
+      VI. Queen Esther Fainting before Ahasuerus         50
+              In Hampton Court Palace
+
+     VII. The Risen Christ blessing three Senators       60
+              In the Venetian Academy
+
+    VIII. Adam and Eve                                   70
+              In the Venetian Academy
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+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.
+
+[Illustration: 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.
+
+In Florence the tendency was to treat art as one branch of the
+many-sided profession of life. The artist of the day was sculptor and
+architect as well; sometimes he was engineer and statesman, he took
+every field of activity for his labours, and certainly the success of
+the great men whose range of endeavour was so wide was quite remarkable.
+Happily the Venetians were less ambitious. Bellini, who is, in the
+colour sense, the father of Venetian art, had a comparatively restricted
+outlook. Titian, his pupil, went farther afield and divorced art from
+the church, doubtless Giorgione had he lived would have helped to make
+that divorce more effective. Tintoretto, who was Titian's pupil, just
+as Titian had been Bellini's, was content to give all his energies, his
+extraordinary industry, and his great gifts to the service of painting.
+He could not enlarge the boundaries because Titian had carried them
+already into the domain of mythology, allegory, and portrait painting,
+and the time had not yet come when landscape could stand by itself. But
+Tintoretto, though he could not develop the theme, managed to develop
+the treatment, and became in a sense to be discussed later on the
+"father" of impressionism. This was his special service to art, and
+must be regarded as a remarkable discovery when we see how firmly fixed
+were the ordinary painters' conventions in handling subjects. Titian
+had broken away from the restrictions on subject matter, it was left to
+Tintoretto to revolt against the conventional handling, but this revolt
+was of course the product of late years. He began where his masters were
+leaving off, and he ended by being a law to himself. It will be seen,
+judging by the statements of his biographers, and particularly that
+of Ridolfi to whom we have referred, that the young painter's gifts
+and his habit of thinking for himself and following his theories into
+the realm of practice were in the way of his advancement. He worked so
+rapidly that the people to whom he applied in the first instance for
+commissions were a little suspicious. They could not understand how a
+man who painted with lightning rapidity and was prepared to sell his
+labour for any price, however small, could claim to be taken seriously.
+His cleverness made them afraid. They do not seem to have understood the
+type of artist that works because work is the very first law of life,
+and is content with a small return, knowing that when once the proper
+chance has come it will be possible to command a better price.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE III.--THE ORIGIN OF "THE MILKY WAY"
+
+This extraordinary painting to be seen to-day at the National Gallery
+reveals not only the artist's vivid imagination but the wonderful
+skill with which he can present a flying figure and leave it as though
+supported in mid air. Students of Tintoretto will not fail to note the
+resemblance between the flying figure here and the one in "The Miracle
+of the Slave" in the Venetian Academy.]
+
+The general feeling about Jacopo Robusti is perhaps summed up by Giorgio
+Vasari in his "Lives." "He is a great lover of the arts," says our
+gossip; "he delights in playing on various musical instruments; he is
+a very agreeable person, but as far as painting is concerned he has
+the most capricious hand, and the boldest, most extravagant, and most
+obstinate brain that ever belonged to painter. Of this the proof lies in
+his works and in their fantastic composition so different from the usage
+of other painters. Indeed, Robusti becomes more than ever extravagant in
+his recent inventions, and the strange fancies that he has executed as
+it were almost without design, as though he aimed to show that art is
+but a jest. He will sometimes present as finished, sketches which are
+just such mere outlines that the spectator sees before him pencil marks
+made by chance, the result of a bold carelessness rather than the fruits
+of design and judgment."
+
+These are significant words only when we consider that they were written
+at a time when Tintoretto was alive, and Vasari must have been moved to
+great excess of zeal to have gone so far in the painter's dispraise.
+Indeed he closes his little sketch by remarking that Tintoretto after
+all is a very clever man and a highly commendable painter. The special
+interest of the criticism lies in its revelation of the attitude of his
+contemporaries towards Tintoretto. For more than a century art had been
+moving, pictures had ceased to be flat, the difficulties of chiaroscuro
+were being faced rather than shirked. Atmosphere was growing, the
+problems of perspective were deemed worthy of careful study. Colour was
+not only brilliant, but the secret of mixing colours long since lost and
+apparently irrecoverable was known in the studios of the leading men.
+But the very earliest lessons of impressionism had yet to be taught, and
+realism had rendered dull and lifeless pictures that were hung rather
+beyond the reach of the spectator's close scrutiny. Tintoretto saw that
+work must be handled in such a fashion that the spectator who stood
+some distance away could get an impression of the whole of the subject
+treated. He knew that if objects were painted with equal values and the
+meticulous care of the miniaturist the canvas would only yield its fruit
+to those who could stare right into it. These facts were a pleasant
+revelation to him and an unpleasant one to his contemporaries. His work
+was destined to influence Velazquez--Velazquez influenced Goya, the
+mantle of Goya fell upon Edouard Manet, and Manet founded the great
+impressionist school of France that has been doing work of extraordinary
+merit and enduring interest while schoolmen of contemporary generations
+have been concerned with telling stories in terms of paint and harking
+back to the pre-Raphaelities.
+
+The modern work suffers more from neglect and disregard than that of the
+great masters of old time, because nowadays it is possible to multiply
+the lowest and most popular class of picture and scatter it broadcast
+among those who have no knowledge of the aims and objects of art. They
+think that a picture is bound to be a good one if it should chance to
+appeal to them, forgetful that their lack of taste may have as much
+as anything to do with the appeal of the work. A picture may please
+an observer because the picture is great or because the observer is
+small, but the latter alternative is hardly popular with those who go
+conscientiously to galleries.
+
+Vasari tells us many stories of Tintoretto's inexhaustible activity.
+Ridolfi does the same, and it is easy to understand why a man who could
+not keep his brush from his hand for any length of time, and would
+accept any price or any commission rather than remain idle, was rather
+a terror to his contemporaries, and earned the title of "Il Furioso"
+by which he was widely known. Few artists in the world's history have
+achieved so much, for although we know of countless frescoes and
+pictures that have perished utterly, we still have something like six
+hundred works left to stand for the seventy-five years of the painter's
+life, and some of these, such as the works in the Doges' Palace, are
+crowded with figures. Indeed the work in the Doges' Palace might well
+stand for the life's monument of any artist however long-lived and
+industrious.
+
+It is no fault of Tintoretto that his work baffles the tired eye. He
+cannot be studied in a day, or two days, or even three; you cannot go
+to him from other painters. He demands the closest and most enduring
+attention together with some expert guidance on the occasion of the
+first visit in order that the countless points in crowded canvas may not
+be overlooked. He was a man of such breadth of vision, his conceptions
+were so magnificent that he must be approached with something akin
+to reverence. We cannot go to him as to Titian or Bellini and feel
+that we can bring to the merit of each canvas the necessary amount
+of appreciation. While the "Paradiso" took years to complete, some of
+Tintoretto's smaller canvases took many months in the making, although
+the painter has never been excelled in the rapidity of execution. He
+who hopes to digest in half-an-hour the work that took Tintoretto half
+a year imagines a vain thing. To read some of the criticism that has
+been meted out to Tintoretto is to realise that their own limitations
+have given serious trouble to some of his critics, because he is so
+vast and so splendid in his themes, and so extraordinarily brilliant in
+his treatment, he has baffled one generation after another. His theory
+of relative values has been misunderstood and misinterpreted, but to
+see him in his true light it is necessary to consider how many of his
+successors could paint a large figured picture on anything approaching
+the same scale with an equal measure of intelligence. Nowadays we do
+not look for heroic achievement; and it is perhaps as well, seeing that
+there is none to be had.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE IV.--ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON
+
+(National Gallery, London)
+
+This remarkable work is one of the finest examples of Tintoretto in
+England. Composition and colouring are alike masterly and though some of
+the beauty of paint has passed, the St. George and the Dragon remains a
+striking work.]
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Thanks to Carlo Ridolfi we can form a fairly correct idea of the
+conditions under which young Tintoretto lived in the early days. The
+expulsion from Titian's studio must have been a very serious blow to
+his hopes and ambitions, but he did not repine unduly--he was made of
+sterner stuff. He took a small apartment and began those unremitting
+labours that were to land him in the first rank of draughtsmen. Through
+Daniele da Volterra, a pupil of Michaelangelo, he secured the models of
+the master's work that were to teach him so much about anatomy, and
+were to be used for experiments in foreshortening, and the treatment
+of light and shade. He had one friend, an artist known as Schiavone,
+a man almost as poor as himself in those first days of struggle and
+disappointment--a man who had likewise sought instruction in Titian's
+studio but had left it without incurring that great master's ill-will.
+One of the earliest commissions that fell to Schiavone was for the
+decoration of St. Mark's Library, but Tintoretto had to wait longer for
+work, and some years would seem to have passed before he realised his
+ambition and received a commission to paint altar-pieces. There are some
+workers to whom enforced idleness would be fatal, and Tintoretto might
+have been one of them, but for the fact that he had no capacity for
+indolence, and would work even though he worked for nothing.
+
+The first church to give him a commission would seem to be that of Santa
+Maria del Carmine, and the impression that he gave to his masters must
+have been a very favourable one, for we find that the churches of St.
+Benedetto and Santo Spirito gave him orders soon after. Then the Scuola
+della Trinita recognised his talent, and gave him an order for certain
+pictures, including the famous "Death of Abel" and the equally famous
+"Adam and Eve," of which John Ruskin said, "this in absolute power
+of painting is the supremest work in all the world." These Scuoli or
+confraternities were both wealthy and powerful bodies, able and eager to
+give valuable commissions to artists. They would often grant permanent
+pay and regular work to the man whose accomplishment satisfied their
+requirements, and the work that remains to us shows that the directors
+of the Scuoli were men of taste and discretion.
+
+As soon as Tintoretto felt that he was within sight of the goal of his
+ambitions he married, choosing for his wife one Faustina of Vescovi, the
+daughter of a patrician house, and a woman who seems to have realised
+that her husband's devotion to the ideals of art were likely to make him
+a very bad business man. Like many of the wives of clever men she played
+the tyrant in matters that did not concern the studio, and the painter
+would seem to have evaded some of her regulations for his comfort by
+saying the thing that was not. We would not say that he originated the
+habit, but it is said to have become popular and traces of it are still
+found among husbands in the twentieth century. Tintoretto took a house
+in the west end of Venice on the Fondamenta dei Mori overlooking Murano,
+and there he worked hard and lived simply. He must have been a man of
+engaging manner and amusing conversation, because Ridolfi has recorded
+many amusing little facts about him in his famous volume of biographies.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE V.--THE PROCURATOR MOROSINI
+
+(From the Venetian Academy)
+
+This is another of Tintoretto's official pictures. The Procurator, a man
+whose singular dignity is not affected by his rather coarse and heavy
+features, is wearing beautiful robes that are now beginning to fade.]
+
+Clearly Tintoretto believed that Titian was his enemy, although we
+do not find that the younger man took any steps to demonstrate his
+ill-will. It would seem that many men who came to Tintoretto's studio
+could talk of nothing but Titian's virtues, and that this conversation
+tired the younger man, who at last put an end to the gossip very
+cleverly. He secured an incomplete canvas by Titian and painted a
+figure into it, then he sent the picture to the house of his friend
+Contarino, where the gossips who dabbled in literature and art were
+accustomed to assemble. All who saw the picture praised it to the
+skies, and when they had finished chattering Tintoretto remarked that
+the work they admired so much was painted partly by himself. Thereafter
+the gossips seem to have found some other topics of conversation, and
+Tintoretto was able to pursue his paths in peace without suffering from
+comparisons that must have been odious.
+
+The painter's union was blessed with children, of whom his daughter
+Marietta was perhaps his favourite. Until she was fifteen years of age
+she used to accompany her father through Venice dressed as a boy. She
+learned a great deal from him, and became a portrait painter, dying
+some little time before her father, to his great grief. Some few of
+Tintoretto's remarks have come down to us. He is said to have held that
+black and white are the most beautiful colours, and with the record
+of this opinion it becomes curious to see in Tintoretto's pictures
+how the splendid colouring that was needed to express his work in the
+days when he was young grew more and more sombre as time passed on,
+until the dominant tone became the golden brown that is familiar to
+students of his pictures. As a young man he revelled in bright colours,
+but in middle and old age their charm passed. There is something very
+human about this attitude towards externals. Tintoretto placed a very
+great importance upon drawing, more importance indeed than any of the
+Venetians had placed upon it before his time. He thought very little of
+copies from the nude, being no believer in the beauty of the average
+nude form, and holding that the hand of the artist is necessary in order
+to express to the full the beauty that the lines of the body suggest.
+One pauses to wonder how he would have regarded Schopenhauer's criticism
+of the female form.
+
+Tintoretto had two sons, who became his pupils when they were old
+enough; he was more fortunate in his family than was his great master
+and rival, and his home life would seem to have been a tranquil one,
+because we have learned from Vasari that he was a good musician, and
+played well on several instruments. Music does not flourish in unhappy
+homes. He could not have entertained as Titian did, because throughout
+his life he was a comparatively poor man, but he gathered round him
+some of the most interesting people in his native city and, with the
+exception of Titian and Aretino, all seemed to have been well pleased
+with him. Aretino, of course, being the greatest gossip of his century,
+could not keep his tongue quiet under any circumstances, and never
+hesitated to say an unpleasant thing as long as it had wit or humour.
+Tintoretto bore with his old master's factotum as long as he could, and
+then his patience giving out, invited him to the studio and proceeded
+to take his measure with a naked dagger, recording it as though he was
+going to paint a portrait. Aretino, who seems to have been an arrant
+coward, took the hint and controlled his unruly tongue. Perhaps he
+realised that it was unnecessary as well as unwise to provoke a man who
+asked for nothing better than to be allowed to spend his life in hard
+work free from interruption.
+
+It is quite likely that Tintoretto's amazing gifts, together with his
+capacity for hard work, would have brought him very rapidly to the
+front, had not Titian been the pride of the Venetians, but while the
+great painter from Cadore dominated the City of the Lagoons no other man
+could hope to stand beside him, and certainly Tintoretto did not improve
+his own chances by his violent early search for work, and his startling
+offers to paint pictures of any size for any price. Inasmuch as he
+did not place a high value upon his own work, it was unreasonable to
+expect that his patrons would fall into the error of over-praising it.
+In setting a value upon their own work most men remember that they are
+sellers, nor is it the business of buyers to raise the price.
+
+It is no easy task to hunt out Tintoretto's countless pictures in
+Venice. Including panels, altar-pieces, and portraits, the work in
+the Doges' Palace, in the Accademia, and the collections of private
+owners, there must be of this painter's work well-nigh three hundred
+examples whose authenticity is beyond dispute, while, needless to say,
+there are plenty of pictures to be found in the collections of dealers
+and amateurs that have rather more than a suspicion of Robusti's hand,
+though they can hardly claim to be painted by him alone. Like all
+other masters Tintoretto had his pupils, and his children and pupils
+between them would appear to be very largely responsible for some of
+the pictures that bear his name. To add to the difficulties of the
+visitor, Tintoretto has suffered more than most men from exposure,
+neglect, and repainting. The salt-savoured air of Venice is by no means
+the best in the world for pictures; and candles, though they may save
+their pious purchasers from many years' suffering in Purgatory, have
+an awkward habit of smoking and spoiling the altar pictures that stand
+before them. Candle smoke respects neither madonna nor saint, and though
+raised with the best intentions, will destroy masterpiece or daub with
+equal certainty and indifference. In Tintoretto's time piety was more
+fashionable than art criticism, and his pictures have suffered very much
+from the devotion they have inspired in the breasts of those to whom
+candles were a short-cut to salvation. Happily the Scuola of St. Roque,
+with its countless beautiful works of the master on panel and ceiling
+and staircase, still preserves a great deal of its original beauty. The
+Doges' Palace has a splendid collection, including the famous "Paradise"
+in the Hall of Council, while other apartments in the palace boast
+specimens of the master's most inspired work. The Royal Palace, and
+that of Prince Giovanelli, are very rich in the fruit of Tintoretto's
+labours, while the Academy of Fine Arts from which a part of the
+pictures given here were taken, holds some of the painter's masterpieces
+in really favourable positions.
+
+In the Doges' Palace the neck and back of the man who wishes to study
+Tintoretto must endure constant strain, and the great compositions are
+so hard to understand that headache often anticipates comprehension, and
+appreciation gets no chance. The Academy is not too crowded, save at the
+season of the great American invasion, and there it is possible to enjoy
+Tintoretto quietly.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VI.--QUEEN ESTHER FAINTING BEFORE AHASUERUS
+
+(Hampton Court Palace)
+
+Here we have one of Tintoretto's spirited compositions in which he makes
+no attempt to adapt his costumes to the period of the Bible story. One
+and all the figures are sixteenth-century Venetians.]
+
+The more we study Tintoretto the more his mastery for every branch
+of his art becomes apparent. His composition is the more marvellous
+because he had not had the advantage of receiving inspiration from
+other masters. He carried composition farther than it had gone before,
+bringing to his aid in that work a certain dramatic instinct that does
+not seem to have been associated with the painter's workshop before
+his time. He redeemed Venetian painting from the charge of bad drawing
+that had been levied against it by the Florentines, and when we come to
+colour we find that Tintoretto has little or nothing to yield in this
+department even to Titian himself, and that he gets many of his finest
+effects from lower tones than those that appealed to his master. Some of
+his colour effects are less daring, less theatrical, less immediate in
+their appeal than those of Titian, but when they are understood they
+are hardly to be less admired, although we have to admit that in many
+cases they have been restored, and retouched by many well-meaning fools
+who did not understand the extraordinary delicacy of treatment that gave
+the canvas its pristine quality. A picture by Tintoretto in which the
+rich golden brown tints have survived the passages of the years and the
+hand of the restorer, is at once a thing to wonder at and be grateful
+for.
+
+Like all great painters Tintoretto had little use for drawings. He did
+not believe in making elaborate studies; we can learn this from his
+first work for the Scuola of St. Roque, when he entered into competition
+with several big painters, and managed to present a finished picture
+to his startled patrons and competitors in the shortest possible
+time. Vasari tells the story, how the brotherhood decided to have some
+"magnificent and honourable work" on the ceiling of the Scuola, and
+asked Salviati, Zucchero, Paolo Cagliari (Veronese), and Tintoretto
+to prepare a design. "While the artists were giving themselves with
+all diligence to the preparations of their designs," writes Vasari,
+"Tintoretto made an exact measurement of the space for which the picture
+was required, and taking a large canvas he painted it at his usual
+speed, without taking any one into his confidence, and fixed it in
+the place destined to receive it. On the morning when the brotherhood
+assembled to see the designs and determine the matter, they found that
+Tintoretto had completed his work, that he had even fixed it in its
+place. At this they were very angry, saying that they desired designs,
+and had not commissioned him to do more than prepare one. Robusti
+replied that this was his method of preparing designs, and that he knew
+no other, that all designs and models for a work should be executed in
+this fashion to the end that persons interested might see what would be
+offered to them, and might not be deceived. Finding the brethren were
+still displeased, Tintoretto added that if they did not think fit to pay
+for the work, he would make a present of it to them for the sake of the
+saint from whom he had received much kindness. The brotherhood could say
+no more, for they dare not refuse a gift offered to their patron, and so
+the picture was accepted, and the brethren had to make their peace as
+best they could with the angry and disappointed competitors."
+
+It would be pleasing to write at length about the work that Tintoretto
+contributed to the buildings of the brotherhood, but in the appendix
+to his third volume of the "Stones of Venice," John Ruskin has dealt
+so completely and so admirably with the master that those who are
+interested will find all they seek in his pages. In the lower hall are
+an "Annunciation," an "Adoration of the Magi," an "Assumption of the
+Virgin," a "Presentation of Jesus," and several others. In the upper
+hall there is the wonderful masterpiece of "St. Roque in Heaven,"
+together with many pictures of the great heroes of Bible History, and
+the "Last Supper" that Velazquez copied. The refectory holds the great
+"Crucifixion," and eleven panels devoted almost entirely to single
+figures.
+
+Tintoretto had a hard struggle to become the painter for the wealthy
+brotherhood, which had already commissioned work from Titian, Giorgione,
+Schiavone, and other men of light and leading, but when he had once
+secured a footing he did not lose the confidence of the brethren. They
+realised that the master was second to none in the honourable ranks of
+their painters, and indeed the brotherhood is best remembered to-day
+because it chose Tintoretto to paint so many of its masterpieces. It
+would have been a pleasant task to reproduce some of these works here,
+but it would have been impossible to put on a small page, with any
+hope of conveying a fair idea of their extraordinary fascination, the
+"Massacre of the Innocents," "Christ before Pilate," the "Crucifixion,"
+or other pictures of that size. It has seemed better on this account to
+rest content for the most part with single figures, and to emphasise
+the one aspect of the painter's many merits. His mastery of composition
+must be left for those who go to Venice or to some other of the cities
+wherein the work is seen in all its glory.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VII.--THE RISEN CHRIST APPEARING TO THREE SENATORS
+
+(In the Venetian Academy)
+
+This is a curious work remarkable for the splendid handling of the
+figure of Christ. The three Senators are so obviously standing for their
+portraits that they do not interest us.]
+
+Some five years would seem to have elapsed between the time when
+Tintoretto forced his picture of St. Roque upon the astonished
+brotherhood, and the time when he painted the "Crucifixion" for the
+Scuola in return for a fee of 250 ducats, becoming thereafter a
+member of the brotherhood. He worked for them for ten years or more,
+leaving the question of terms to their judgment, but receiving a very
+fair price. By the middle of the 'sixties his position in Venice
+was assured. He was accepted on every hand as a man who honoured the
+churches and brotherhoods, civil or religious, that employed him.
+Unlike Titian he was very reliable, and does not seem to have accepted
+commissions and then to have ignored them because better work came along
+unexpectedly. His work in the churches is very varied and is scattered
+throughout Venice. Ridolfi refers to his early pictures in the Church
+of St. Benedict, but they are not to be found there now. Santa Maria
+dell 'Orto, which was one of the first to employ his brush, holds his
+famous "Last Judgment," a composition of singular nobility, painted with
+great technical skill, and the wonderful imagination that inspired all
+the painter's efforts. Unfortunately the details on the canvas are not
+easily seen, and the whole work would appear to have been handed
+over more than once to the renovator whose tender mercies, like those of
+the wicked, are cruel. In the same church there are two "Martyrdoms,"
+one of St. Paul or St. Christopher, and another of St. Agnes, and there
+is the fascinating "Presentation of the Virgin," which ranks side by
+side with Titian's masterpiece in the Venetian Academy. Tintoretto's
+colour scheme is more subdued, but the composition is singularly
+attractive, and the painter's knowledge of perspective, his gift of
+conveying atmosphere, his skill in handling the human figure in any
+position have hardly been seen to greater advantage than in this master
+work. Perhaps because the church Santa Maria dell 'Orto received the
+artist's earliest work he loved it above all other churches, for it held
+the vault of the Vescovis and he chose to be buried there. Clearly he
+was one for whom his wife's family held no terrors. Many other painters
+figure in this church, which lies well away from the city's main
+thoroughfares, by the canal Rio della Madonna dell 'Orto. Palma Vecchio
+is to be seen there and that Girolamo who is said to have acted for
+Titian when he wished to expel Tintoretto from his workshop. The church
+also has a "Pieta" by Lorenzo Lotto, and a "Madonna" by Gian Bellini.
+Tintoretto's burial in the church is recorded on a tablet.
+
+The church of San Cassiano has two or three pictures by Tintoretto, and
+that of San Francisco della Vigna is said to have another, but it is not
+to be seen, and the brethren of St. Francis who pace to and fro along
+the broken-down cloisters can give no information to intruders armed
+with red guide-books. San Giorgio Maggiore is rich in Tintorettos,
+and has one or two attractive works by Bassano. A very famous "Last
+Supper" was painted for this church, but the work will not vie with much
+that Tintoretto did elsewhere. Santa Maria dei Frari has a beautiful
+"Massacre of the Innocents." San Marziale has an "Ascension," and
+two "Annunciations," together with a work that the painter did not
+live to finish. On the Giudecca in the old Franciscan Church of the
+Redentore, where a famous water festival is held throughout one night
+in the summer, there are two splendid examples of the painter's work,
+and in the church of the Madonna della Salute there is a "Marriage of
+Cana." This church holds several pictures by Titian and other masters
+of renown. Santo Stefano is said to have some famous pictures by
+Tintoretto in the sacristy, but the writer has not seen them.
+
+The list of church pictures is by no means exhausted. It would not
+be easy to deal with them without giving these pages a suspicious
+resemblance to a catalogue. The visitor to Venice may be well advised to
+visit as many churches as he can, and to remember that many a building
+of little latter-day significance holds priceless work belonging to the
+sixteenth century. In Florence there are a score or more of Tintoretto's
+pictures in the galleries of the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace; in the
+former there is a striking replica of the "Wedding at Cana" in the
+Venetian church of the Madonna della Salute, but all these have their
+crowd of admirers; they are catalogued and clearly seen. In Venice, on
+the other hand, many a church from which the hurried tourist turns
+aside holds one or more of Tintoretto's masterpieces, and if it is
+well hung and has escaped the troublesome attentions of restorer and
+candle-burner, it will well repay quiet study.
+
+The story that a great picture has to tell travels far beyond its own
+subject-matter, and the quality of that imagination which is associated
+with all great work is seen in a very high degree in many a church
+picture by the great Venetian master. Perhaps he owes his heroic
+achievements to Michelangelo. The full story of his indebtedness has
+been treated at length by John Ruskin, for whom the painter's work held
+great attractions; but it may be said, without fear of contradiction,
+that where a picture has survived its surroundings, the vigour of mind,
+the breadth of view, the dramatic sense of the painter, his splendid
+power of seeing the great stories of Old or New Testament in their
+most dramatic aspect, will satisfy the most critical sense of the
+onlooker almost as much as the conquest of difficulties in light, shade,
+foreshortening, composition, and graded tones please the man who has
+mastered the technicalities of the painter's art.
+
+Looking at Tintoretto's work and remembering that he hardly stirred
+beyond the limits of the Republic, it is impossible not to reflect
+upon the chance and luck that beset the lives of men. Tintoretto, with
+his splendid gifts, his rapid accomplishment, his courteous manner,
+remains in Venice; his fame suffering because he could see far beyond
+the limits that beset the view of his great and popular master. Had
+Tintoretto not been able to see quite so clearly, had he not alarmed
+contemporary criticism by groping successfully after the first truths
+of impressionism, he might have been in the fulness of time the court
+painter of popes and emperors. His splendour might have been diffused
+throughout Italy; it might have travelled to Spain, then the greatest of
+all world powers. Titian, for all his extraordinary gifts, had certain
+conventional limitations. Tintoretto, equally gifted, could see more
+deeply into the truths that underlie painting, so he did not prosper
+in like degree. Happily for him he was a man who worked for work's
+sake, as long as his hands were full and he could labour from morning
+until night, the pecuniary and social results hardly seemed worth
+bothering about. We know that Titian, whose income was much larger than
+Tintoretto's, was loud in his complaints of bad times and inadequate
+payments, but if Tintoretto complained, Ridolfi has forgotten to
+record the fact. There is no attempt here to belittle Titian or to
+praise Tintoretto; each was a man for whom the sixteenth century and
+its successors must need be grateful. The difference between them was
+temperamental, and is worth recording, though it is not set down in any
+spirit of unfriendly criticism.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--ADAM AND EVE
+
+(From the Venetian Academy)
+
+This picture, representing Eve in the act of offering the apple to Adam,
+is remarkable for the beauty of the flesh painting. John Ruskin was
+moved to express his admiration for it in terms of enthusiasm.]
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+It would seem that the pictures for the brotherhood of St. Roque secured
+for Tintoretto the crowning honour of his life, the commission to bring
+his brush to the service of the Doges' Palace. It is hardly too much to
+say that just as the Doges' Palace is the most remarkable monument of
+the Venetian Republic left in Venice to-day, so Tintoretto's pictures
+are the most remarkable decorations in the palace itself. There
+must be fifty or more of them, if we include the Hall of Grand Council,
+the Hall of Scrutiny, the College, the Entrance and the Passage to the
+Council of Ten, the Ante-room to the Chapel, the Senate and the Salon
+of the Four Doors; but the task of painting fifty pictures, stupendous
+though it may seem, is not realised until we remember the size and
+quality of some of these works. The "Paradise," for example, in the
+Council Hall, is more than twenty-five yards long, and is such a work
+as many a painter would have given the greater part of his life to; but
+Tintoretto had little more than six years to live when he undertook the
+work, and there is no doubt that while the brain behind the picture was
+always his, the hand was sometimes that of his son or one of his pupils.
+
+It may be supposed that most painters, who have reached Tintoretto's
+age when they received their commission for the Ducal Palace, would
+have hesitated to begin work on such a colossal scale. They would have
+felt that the span of their life could hardly stretch much farther,
+and knowing that much was to be done in the way of portraits and small
+pictures, would have been content with these. It was characteristic of
+Tintoretto that he should at once undertake pictures on the largest
+scale known to painters. Not only did he undertake the work, but he
+accomplished it.
+
+The student of Tintoretto who finds himself in Venice should, we think,
+endeavour to leave the Doges' Palace alone until he has watched the
+painter's development in the various Venetian churches. Then he should
+study the work done for the brotherhood of St. Roque, and finally
+should go to St. Mark's to see the crowning achievement of one of the
+greatest men who ever took a paint-brush in hand. Students of opera
+will have noticed how a great singer will sometimes keep his voice back
+until the work is nearly over, in order to put all his energy into the
+last act, and so leave an impression that will not be forgotten easily.
+So it was with Tintoretto. He did splendid work in many directions,
+but saved himself for the last act, and the crowning achievement of
+his life was reserved for the Doges' Palace. There all the inspiration
+that had blossomed in the Venetian churches, and budded in the Scuola
+of St. Roque, came suddenly into flower, and the visitor to the palace
+will look in vain throughout the civilised world for an equally enduring
+monument to any one man. Other great artists have left their traces in
+many cities, but it may be doubted whether Michelangelo and Raphael in
+the Vatican have left a more enduring record than Tintoretto gave to
+the Palace of the Doges. So vast was his achievement, so brilliant was
+his imagination, that our eyes, trained down to see small things, and
+unaccustomed to realise the full idea underlying great pictures, tremble
+before the "Paradise" and "Venice with the Gods and the Doge Nicolo da
+Ponte," or the "Capture of Zara," or "St. Mark Introducing the Doge
+Mocenigo to Christ," or the splendid "Descent from the Cross," in the
+Senate, or the Pagan picture in the Salon of the Four Doors, in which
+Jupiter gives Venice the Empire of the Sea. Any one of these pictures
+might have been regarded as the crowning achievement in the life of a
+very considerable painter. Before them all imagination stops. Certainly
+Tintoretto was a long time coming into his kingdom, but there could have
+been few to dispute his supremacy when he arrived.
+
+In 1574 Tintoretto applied to the Fondaco de Tedeschi for a broker's
+patent, and thus history repeated itself, for it will be remembered
+that Titian had endeavoured to secure Bellini's place in the great
+house of the German merchants, and now Tintoretto was supplanting
+Titian. The application seems to have been quite successful. The house
+to-day serves as a general post-office, and still shows some slight
+trace of the frescoes of Giorgione and Titian. There does not seem to
+be any record of work that Tintoretto did for the German merchants,
+but the appointment was largely an honorary one as far as the work
+went, although it brought a certain income to the fortunate owner of
+the office. Tintoretto had now reached the time when his work could no
+longer be ignored, and even Florence which looked askance at art in
+Venice elected the painter a member of its Academy, an honour that was
+conferred also upon Titian, Paul Veronese, and a few smaller men.
+
+Throughout all the years in which the painter's art was maturing, and
+the circle of his patrons was widening, he seems to have lived a quiet
+and uneventful life in Venice, seeking friends in his own circle,
+labouring diligently in his studio, and never permitting the claims of
+affairs lying outside his work to tempt him to be idle. A man of happy
+disposition, with no vices, and no extravagant tastes, he would seem
+to have found his earning sufficient for his need, and to have been
+happy in his home life, although we have already recorded the fact upon
+Ridolfi's authority that like so many other good men Tintoretto was in
+the habit of telling lies to his wife. Signora Robusti must have been a
+little trying when she sought to regulate her husband's expenditure, the
+times of his going out and coming in, and other trifles of the sort that
+good women delight to take an interest in.
+
+The great grief of Tintoretto's life was happily delayed until 1590,
+when the well-beloved Marietta, who had been her father's friend and
+companion for so long, died. The shock must have been a very serious
+one, for Tintoretto himself was well over seventy, but it does not seem
+to have diminished his activity. He would appear to have given all his
+days to his own labour, or the superintendence of the labours of others,
+and so the years crept on uneventfully for him, until the last day
+of May 1594 when his strenuous, vigorous, and brilliant career found
+its closing hour, and those whom he left behind, together with a great
+concourse of admiring citizens, took him to the tomb of his wife's house
+in the Church of the Madonna dell 'Orto, which he had enriched with so
+much fine painting. His daughter, having predeceased him--as we have
+seen, she was a portrait painter, and her father's dearest friend--his
+son Domenico carried on the family work, and completed his father's
+commissions, but neither brain, nor hand, nor eye could compare with
+those that were now at rest, and the younger Tintoretto makes small
+claim upon the attention of artist or historian.
+
+So a very great man passed out of the life of Venice, and for a brief
+while his fame slumbered, but in years to come great artists, Velazquez
+foremost among them, made the great city of the Adriatic a place of
+pilgrimage for his sake. His influence, travelling on another road,
+extended as far as Van Dyck. We have already traced the descent to the
+modern school of impressionism, but he would be a bold man who would
+say that the influence of Tintoretto is exhausted, or holds that he has
+nothing to teach the twentieth century. His light will hardly grow dim
+as long as his painting has a claim upon the attention of civilised men.
+
+
+    The plates are printed by BEMROSE DALZIEL, LTD., Watford
+    The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+Simple typographical errors were corrected.
+
+Defective printing of names of authors of some other titles in the
+Series was remedied by reference to another title in the Series, whose
+list was well-printed.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tintoretto, by Samuel Levy Bensusan
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42528 ***