DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0101
COLOUR AND LIGHT
from the row of windows full on the long line of fair faces. They
remind us of the row of lily-maids in the ‘ Finding of the Cross,’
but here their connexion with the subject is much better managed.
Those at the farther end have not yet been aroused by the
miracle, so they are still in quiet talk. Next the bending, haloed
form of the Madonna, is the young bride, and by her side the
bearded face of the bridegroom. The young woman leaning
across the table is almost classical in the dignity and simplicity
of her lines, and is balanced rhythmically by another who has
risen and sways in the opposite direction. A sense of broad
and pleasant space pervades what is a sufficiently important
dwelling, though it has nothing in common with the patrician
palaces of Veronese. Here we see once more how logical
Tintoretto’s silhouettes almost always are; the man pouring the
wine, the woman showing the contents of her glass have a
natural and inevitable play of light and shade. The detail absent
from the high lights and deep darks is concentrated with great
truth in the middle tones. There is positive colour in the
garments, but the picture does not depend on it; one would say
the painter has hardly cared about it, so completely is it fused
and mingled in one harmonious, radiant scheme.
Venice had a narrow escape of losing this treasure of art.
When the monastery of the Crociferi, for which it was painted,
was suppressed in 1657, the Grand Duke of Tuscany made a
determined attempt to acquire it for his gallery, and it needed a
special Bull to retain it and to instal it in its present position in
the Church of the Salute. It is inscribed with the full name of
the artist, and the date 1561.
51
from the row of windows full on the long line of fair faces. They
remind us of the row of lily-maids in the ‘ Finding of the Cross,’
but here their connexion with the subject is much better managed.
Those at the farther end have not yet been aroused by the
miracle, so they are still in quiet talk. Next the bending, haloed
form of the Madonna, is the young bride, and by her side the
bearded face of the bridegroom. The young woman leaning
across the table is almost classical in the dignity and simplicity
of her lines, and is balanced rhythmically by another who has
risen and sways in the opposite direction. A sense of broad
and pleasant space pervades what is a sufficiently important
dwelling, though it has nothing in common with the patrician
palaces of Veronese. Here we see once more how logical
Tintoretto’s silhouettes almost always are; the man pouring the
wine, the woman showing the contents of her glass have a
natural and inevitable play of light and shade. The detail absent
from the high lights and deep darks is concentrated with great
truth in the middle tones. There is positive colour in the
garments, but the picture does not depend on it; one would say
the painter has hardly cared about it, so completely is it fused
and mingled in one harmonious, radiant scheme.
Venice had a narrow escape of losing this treasure of art.
When the monastery of the Crociferi, for which it was painted,
was suppressed in 1657, the Grand Duke of Tuscany made a
determined attempt to acquire it for his gallery, and it needed a
special Bull to retain it and to instal it in its present position in
the Church of the Salute. It is inscribed with the full name of
the artist, and the date 1561.
51