DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0041
THE MAN AND HIS LIFE
yet a third time gave the maxim; that is, 4 Get your instrument
perfect and then you can do with it as you will.’ So he worked
from the casts, of which, as time went on, he acquired a large
collection ; he made models of the human figure, suspending them
by strings so as to notice every complicated posture and fore-
shortening, and studying till, like Michelangelo in his great feat
in the 4 Last Judgment,’ he could draw a figure from memory in
any attitude. Every arm and hand and torso he could collect
he drew over and over again on coloured paper, with charcoal,
in water-colours, and in every other way in which he could teach
himself what was necessary for the uses of art. . . . He also con-
tinued, in order to practise himself in the management of colour,
to visit every place where painting was going on; and it is said,
drawn by the desire for work, he went with the builders to Citta-
della, where round the rays of the clock he painted various fanci-
ful matters. . . . He went much about also among the painters
of the second class, who worked in the Piazza San Marco on the
painters’ benches.’ The scientific study of light and shade next
engrossed him. He constructed little cardboard houses in which
it was easy, by means of sliding shutters, to arrange effects of
lamplight and skylight. In Venice herself, in 4 the City of the
Sea,’ with golden clouds rising out of a burnished ocean, with
luminous reflections in her green waters, with that whiteness
which is the first impression of her palaces, and that darkness
in which all colour seems embalmed, he drew in the love of
colour, and still more that love of shine and shadow which in
the end was the most victorious of all his inspirations.
Early dependence on his own efforts made of Tintoretto a free-
lance among painters. A whole host of Titianesque followers
were competing for the favour of the Republic, but Tintoretto
was the helper and hanger-on of no great man, he had no neces-
sary etiquette to maintain or time-honoured formulas to satisfy.
He threw all the network of professional scruples to the winds;
he would work for anybody on any terms. Like Schiavone, who
was himself a poor man and had no studio, he made friends with
the masons who laid the last coat of intonaco or plaster for the
fresco - painters, and bargained with them in their employer’s
interest. When the owners did not intend to go to the expense
15
yet a third time gave the maxim; that is, 4 Get your instrument
perfect and then you can do with it as you will.’ So he worked
from the casts, of which, as time went on, he acquired a large
collection ; he made models of the human figure, suspending them
by strings so as to notice every complicated posture and fore-
shortening, and studying till, like Michelangelo in his great feat
in the 4 Last Judgment,’ he could draw a figure from memory in
any attitude. Every arm and hand and torso he could collect
he drew over and over again on coloured paper, with charcoal,
in water-colours, and in every other way in which he could teach
himself what was necessary for the uses of art. . . . He also con-
tinued, in order to practise himself in the management of colour,
to visit every place where painting was going on; and it is said,
drawn by the desire for work, he went with the builders to Citta-
della, where round the rays of the clock he painted various fanci-
ful matters. . . . He went much about also among the painters
of the second class, who worked in the Piazza San Marco on the
painters’ benches.’ The scientific study of light and shade next
engrossed him. He constructed little cardboard houses in which
it was easy, by means of sliding shutters, to arrange effects of
lamplight and skylight. In Venice herself, in 4 the City of the
Sea,’ with golden clouds rising out of a burnished ocean, with
luminous reflections in her green waters, with that whiteness
which is the first impression of her palaces, and that darkness
in which all colour seems embalmed, he drew in the love of
colour, and still more that love of shine and shadow which in
the end was the most victorious of all his inspirations.
Early dependence on his own efforts made of Tintoretto a free-
lance among painters. A whole host of Titianesque followers
were competing for the favour of the Republic, but Tintoretto
was the helper and hanger-on of no great man, he had no neces-
sary etiquette to maintain or time-honoured formulas to satisfy.
He threw all the network of professional scruples to the winds;
he would work for anybody on any terms. Like Schiavone, who
was himself a poor man and had no studio, he made friends with
the masons who laid the last coat of intonaco or plaster for the
fresco - painters, and bargained with them in their employer’s
interest. When the owners did not intend to go to the expense
15