DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0117
CHAPTER VII
THE REFECTORY
WE have given the first place to the ceiling in the
refectory of the Scuola di San Rocco, because that
was the first touch laid of the mighty undertaking,
but it is not likely that any one going there now will notice
Tintoretto’s initial piece of painting at first, or even perhaps care
much to look at it at all, for the wall opposite the entrance is
filled by the work he next achieved; that which more than any
other is held to establish his right to stand in the front rank,
among the very greatest of his craft.
This is the picture of which Ruskin said that it had better be left
to speak its own message. This must always be true, and perhaps
there are few pictures that speak so strongly, yet those who have
long known and loved it may be able to suggest and gather
together thoughts, not unwelcome to the many whose acquaint-
ance with it can only be a passing one. And in our estimate of
the painter’s career it marks an immense stride; it is a gathering
up and a development of all that he has hitherto learned, and an
earnest that all the mass of achievements that came after is based
upon consummate knowledge and deep feeling.
Perhaps we hardly realize how much the first strong impression
made upon us is due to the atmosphere of the old painting. We
‘ swim into a sea of light and air.’ The fourth wall becomes no
longer a wall, but a piece of the world, in which events of deep
import are taking place. At the next moment the eye is struck
by figures in violent action, men hanging on ropes to draw a cross
to an upright position; but almost before we notice that they are
there, they have shrunk back into that insignificance which is their
real portion in the great world-tragedy, and we gaze, hushed
61
i
THE REFECTORY
WE have given the first place to the ceiling in the
refectory of the Scuola di San Rocco, because that
was the first touch laid of the mighty undertaking,
but it is not likely that any one going there now will notice
Tintoretto’s initial piece of painting at first, or even perhaps care
much to look at it at all, for the wall opposite the entrance is
filled by the work he next achieved; that which more than any
other is held to establish his right to stand in the front rank,
among the very greatest of his craft.
This is the picture of which Ruskin said that it had better be left
to speak its own message. This must always be true, and perhaps
there are few pictures that speak so strongly, yet those who have
long known and loved it may be able to suggest and gather
together thoughts, not unwelcome to the many whose acquaint-
ance with it can only be a passing one. And in our estimate of
the painter’s career it marks an immense stride; it is a gathering
up and a development of all that he has hitherto learned, and an
earnest that all the mass of achievements that came after is based
upon consummate knowledge and deep feeling.
Perhaps we hardly realize how much the first strong impression
made upon us is due to the atmosphere of the old painting. We
‘ swim into a sea of light and air.’ The fourth wall becomes no
longer a wall, but a piece of the world, in which events of deep
import are taking place. At the next moment the eye is struck
by figures in violent action, men hanging on ropes to draw a cross
to an upright position; but almost before we notice that they are
there, they have shrunk back into that insignificance which is their
real portion in the great world-tragedy, and we gaze, hushed
61
i