From the opening image, viewers get a glimpse of what made Tintoretto the envy of his painterly peers. A self-portrait of the young artist stares frankly over his shoulder, his coat velvety black, his face dark and handsome, with a devilish beard. Animated and penetrating, he appears to be gazing simultaneously into a mirror and into the viewer’s soul. Beyond, his other works follow chronologically down the Prado’s beautiful central gallery. Richly framed, brightly lit and hung at eye level, they afford an unprecedented view of his unusual brushstrokes, extraordinary perspective and magical lighting effects. “Everyone knows Tintoretto–even Woody Allen knows him in that movie [‘Everyone Says I Love You’]–and everyone loves Tintoretto, but I am absolutely sure that no one can give you the title of one of his paintings,” says Miguel Falomir, the exhibition’s curator. “This is an opportunity to rediscover one of the greatest artists in the history of painting.”
As the story goes, Jacopo Robusti–who became known as Tintoretto because his father was a dyer, or tintore –was born in 1518 and entered Titian’s Venice workshop at the age of 12, lasting 10 days before the master booted him out, jealous of the kid’s potential. Before long Tintoretto approached Titian’s skill as a colorist. Meanwhile, Michelangelo was painting bodies that looked like moving sculptures, so Tintoretto studied them carefully and taught himself to paint bodies in motion, too. Indeed, the works on display reveal a spectacular energy and deep emotion derived from the dramatic interplay of light and shadow. Intensely realistic, his paintings also convey an element of the fantastic.
The pieces on display include religious paintings, mythological paintings and portraits, as well as drawings and preparatory studies that reveal–in some cases with the help of X-ray technology–how the artist produced his work. Supplemented by wall text in English and Spanish, they offer a narrative of Tintoretto’s life, work and relationships, including his rivalry with Titian, and his influence on the Spanish artists El Greco and Velásquez, whose works lie just around the corner. The accompanying catalog runs nearly 500 pages–and weighs about 500 pounds–and is written with the grace and scholarship of a full-fledged biography.
As a highlight, the exhibit brings together for the first time in 400 years the masterpieces “The Last Supper” (1547) from the Church of San Marcuola in Venice and “The Washing of the Feet” (1548-49), which is now part of the Prado’s permanent collection but was originally painted for the San Marcuola Church. Here they are displayed adjacently as Tintoretto must have intended: the rigid symmetry of the former painting makes clear that it was meant for a frontal view, while “Washing” demands to be seen from the side, where the perspective at once makes exquisite, coherent sense.
The last painting in the show is a bookend to the opener: the self-portrait of the artist as an old man (1588). He faces front this time, again wearing a black coat, but now his eyes are exhausted; the catalog describes the overwhelming sensation as one of silence, for his ears are hidden and his mouth is lost in his beard. But all he had to say is clear on the canvases behind.
