DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0160
TINTORETTO
Christ during His mission on earth, this was fittingly approached
by the history of the Virgin and of the infancy of her Son.
Tintoretto begins with the ‘ Annunciation,’ a picture which faces
us as we enter, and which lingers in the memory like a chime of
bells. The planning of this interior is full of meaning. The
room in which Mary sits has a carved ceiling, a raised bed with
velvet curtains, and the tesselated floor, common to all Italian
palaces. Standing on it is an old rush-bottomed chair, a token
that it is now inhabited by very poor people. The ruined i wall
of partition ’ is connected with the ruins outside by the sharp line
of light which runs along the carpenter’s square that leans against
it. These are no mere indications of the calling of Mary’s
husband, though that too has its share. The ruined dwelling is the
J ewish dispensation; the stately old house has fallen upon evil
days, its occupants sit under a decaying roof-tree, but ‘ the
corner-stone of the old building remains, though the builder’s tools
lie idle beside it, and the stone which the builders refused, is
become the headstone of the corner.’
The Virgin is represented here as a common peasant woman
with large coarse hands, very unlike Tintoretto’s usual type. She
looks up, startled, astounded, as there sweeps through her quiet
solitude the flash and clamour of the winged host following the
dove; the mystery, which in another instant will envelop her.
Yet this is no vulgar astonishment, there is no attempt at flight,
hardly of shrinking or turning back, but more an attitude of
instantaneous recognition and spontaneous concurrence. On the
outside of the ruined house the eye swims suddenly into as
radiant a piece of landscape as you shall find on a summer’s
morning, a vivid, glowing distance, typifying the dawn of the
Christian day. And what a marvellous flight that is of angel and
train of cherubs following the dove, with an impetus which, we
feel, cannot be checked. Not for nothing has the old painter
stood for unnumbered times since his boyhood in the Piazza
watching the pigeons rise and wheel in that headlong flight and
veer round in exactly such a curve as these will describe as they
pass out again, leaving Mary alone with her wonder. The pigeons
were there long before Tintoretto’s time, and are already spoken
of in the twelfth century. Not for nothing has he watched the
90
Christ during His mission on earth, this was fittingly approached
by the history of the Virgin and of the infancy of her Son.
Tintoretto begins with the ‘ Annunciation,’ a picture which faces
us as we enter, and which lingers in the memory like a chime of
bells. The planning of this interior is full of meaning. The
room in which Mary sits has a carved ceiling, a raised bed with
velvet curtains, and the tesselated floor, common to all Italian
palaces. Standing on it is an old rush-bottomed chair, a token
that it is now inhabited by very poor people. The ruined i wall
of partition ’ is connected with the ruins outside by the sharp line
of light which runs along the carpenter’s square that leans against
it. These are no mere indications of the calling of Mary’s
husband, though that too has its share. The ruined dwelling is the
J ewish dispensation; the stately old house has fallen upon evil
days, its occupants sit under a decaying roof-tree, but ‘ the
corner-stone of the old building remains, though the builder’s tools
lie idle beside it, and the stone which the builders refused, is
become the headstone of the corner.’
The Virgin is represented here as a common peasant woman
with large coarse hands, very unlike Tintoretto’s usual type. She
looks up, startled, astounded, as there sweeps through her quiet
solitude the flash and clamour of the winged host following the
dove; the mystery, which in another instant will envelop her.
Yet this is no vulgar astonishment, there is no attempt at flight,
hardly of shrinking or turning back, but more an attitude of
instantaneous recognition and spontaneous concurrence. On the
outside of the ruined house the eye swims suddenly into as
radiant a piece of landscape as you shall find on a summer’s
morning, a vivid, glowing distance, typifying the dawn of the
Christian day. And what a marvellous flight that is of angel and
train of cherubs following the dove, with an impetus which, we
feel, cannot be checked. Not for nothing has the old painter
stood for unnumbered times since his boyhood in the Piazza
watching the pigeons rise and wheel in that headlong flight and
veer round in exactly such a curve as these will describe as they
pass out again, leaving Mary alone with her wonder. The pigeons
were there long before Tintoretto’s time, and are already spoken
of in the twelfth century. Not for nothing has he watched the
90