DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0040
TINTORETTO
adds his biographer, ‘become sometimes powerful stimulants to
the noble spirit and afford material for generous resolution.’
Whether he placed himself in any other school is quite unknown.
Mr. Berenson thinks he may have been a pupil of Bonifazio, who
was just then one of the most distinguished of the masters
working in Venice. It is known that he soon formed a friendship
with Andrea Schiavone, who was two years his junior, and to the
end of his life his work shows occasional traces of Schiavone’s
influence. Schiavone spent much time in studying Parmigianino
and in engraving his drawings, and the influence of Parmigianino
appears very strongly in Tintoretto’s earlier work.
In the next ten years we have glimpses of Tintoretto, not
under any master to whom we can confidently point, but pursuing
his artistic studies wherever an opening offered, with the headlong
ardour which all his life characterized his attitude towards art.
Daniele da Volterra, who had been working with Michelangelo
in the early days of the Sistine frescoes, had brought drawings
to Venice of the great Florentine’s statues in the Medici Chapel,
which fired Tintoretto’s imagination, and with an enterprise sur-
prising in a boy, at a time when transportation was costly and
difficult, he imported casts of the ‘ Dawn ’ and ‘ Twilight,’ the
‘ Night ’ and ‘ Morning.’ Studying Titian’s colour, he was quick to
see the purer examples of form to be found with the Florentine;
perhaps Daniele had retailed Buonarroti’s sarcastic comment,
‘ What a pity they could not learn to draw in Venice ’; in any case
such a criticism is sure to have been well known and much
discussed, and the watchword written on Tintoretto’s studio,
as soon as he got one, was, ‘ The colour of Titian and the form
of Michelangelo.’ No sense of any wrong done to him by
Titian prevented his study of his principles, and Titian’s influence
is the strongest of all in early years.
It has been said that ‘ you can learn to draw, but colour is
the gift of the fairies.’ Tintoretto knowing what came easily to
him, devoted all his energies to that which did not come by
nature, but which could be acquired by hard work. ‘ Study
drawing,’ he said long afterwards, to a young Bolognese artist
and engraver, who asked him how to reach excellence, and to the
question, ‘ What further ? ’ he repeated, ‘ Study drawing,’ and
14
adds his biographer, ‘become sometimes powerful stimulants to
the noble spirit and afford material for generous resolution.’
Whether he placed himself in any other school is quite unknown.
Mr. Berenson thinks he may have been a pupil of Bonifazio, who
was just then one of the most distinguished of the masters
working in Venice. It is known that he soon formed a friendship
with Andrea Schiavone, who was two years his junior, and to the
end of his life his work shows occasional traces of Schiavone’s
influence. Schiavone spent much time in studying Parmigianino
and in engraving his drawings, and the influence of Parmigianino
appears very strongly in Tintoretto’s earlier work.
In the next ten years we have glimpses of Tintoretto, not
under any master to whom we can confidently point, but pursuing
his artistic studies wherever an opening offered, with the headlong
ardour which all his life characterized his attitude towards art.
Daniele da Volterra, who had been working with Michelangelo
in the early days of the Sistine frescoes, had brought drawings
to Venice of the great Florentine’s statues in the Medici Chapel,
which fired Tintoretto’s imagination, and with an enterprise sur-
prising in a boy, at a time when transportation was costly and
difficult, he imported casts of the ‘ Dawn ’ and ‘ Twilight,’ the
‘ Night ’ and ‘ Morning.’ Studying Titian’s colour, he was quick to
see the purer examples of form to be found with the Florentine;
perhaps Daniele had retailed Buonarroti’s sarcastic comment,
‘ What a pity they could not learn to draw in Venice ’; in any case
such a criticism is sure to have been well known and much
discussed, and the watchword written on Tintoretto’s studio,
as soon as he got one, was, ‘ The colour of Titian and the form
of Michelangelo.’ No sense of any wrong done to him by
Titian prevented his study of his principles, and Titian’s influence
is the strongest of all in early years.
It has been said that ‘ you can learn to draw, but colour is
the gift of the fairies.’ Tintoretto knowing what came easily to
him, devoted all his energies to that which did not come by
nature, but which could be acquired by hard work. ‘ Study
drawing,’ he said long afterwards, to a young Bolognese artist
and engraver, who asked him how to reach excellence, and to the
question, ‘ What further ? ’ he repeated, ‘ Study drawing,’ and
14