Phillipps, Evelyn March; Tintoretto: Tintoretto: with 61 plates (London: Methuen & Co., 1911)

shows some indications of Parmigianino’s influence, and might be
a comparatively early work, but that it has the tendency to group
numbers together and to paint in red-browns which we find in the
‘ Marriage,’ to which, however, it is very inferior in single figures,
in atmosphere and in composition. It has a good deal of affinity
with the 4 Miracle of the Slave,’ and if it were not for the
colour, might be an anterior work. The scene takes place in a
piazza encircled by Renaissance architecture; the woman who had
been restored to life by the touch of the True Cross, lies, rather
supported by, than crushed under its weight, with the light
striking in from the left upon her face. The tall figure of the
Empress towers above her, clasping her hands in agitation as she
turns to look at the nails. In the background stands a row
of women, tall, white, slender forms,4 like a row of lilies,’ reminding
us in their exaggerated length of those figures of Parmigianino
which Andrea Schiavone had devoted himself to engraving. They
are ranged so as to afford a mass of light, but they are in no way
occupied with the action of the picture, a mistake which Tinto-
retto soon entirely avoids.
The altarpiece painted for SS. Giovanni e Paolo is a forerunner
of his 4 Crucifixion ’ in the Scuola di San Rocco. Faded as it is,
it needs some study before we can grasp it as a whole, but as
a composition it is perhaps the most masterly we have yet en-
countered. The surging crowd against the blue and luminous
distance is handled with such knowledge that, as Ruskin points
out, not one figure injures or contends with another. The masses
are skilfully broken up and lightened, by the cordsjand ladder, by
the graceful figure of the man upon it, outlined against the light,
by the women’s white head-dress and kerchiefs in the shadow at
the foot of the cross, and by the white garment trailed by Joseph
of Arimathea, as the highest light in the picture, the garment
4 stained with the blood of that King, before whom five days
before, they had strewed their own garments in the way.’ In
higher parts of the picture, where the necessary relief of white is
required, it is obtained in large masses by the very legitimate
device of mounting all the soldiers of the Roman legion upon
white horses. The impenitent thief has twisted himself free in
his death-agony, and hangs by one arm, so that he is brought
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