DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0198
TINTORETTO
To find what is perhaps the highest point he ever touched in
his symbolical treatment of light we must cross over to the
tiny island allotted to San Giorgio Maggiore. In the choir
hang two paintings, intended as companion pictures, illustrative
of the sacrifice of the Mass. If we compare the first, the
‘ Gathering of the Manna,’ with the same subject in San Rocco,
we see that the master has made choice of an entirely different
moment, and so has secured variety of incident. In the San
Rocco painting the falling of the manna is still a surprise and
a miracle ; the recipients rush forward holding baskets, and gather
it with every mark of astonishment and thanksgiving. In this
calm though busy scene before us all that is changed. The dwellers
in the wilderness are going on their way, pursuing their daily
avocations; they are bearing wood, drawing water, driving loaded
beasts, washing, cooking, spinning. The manna is there, it lies
all over the ground, almost unheeded, it can be gathered up at
any time; only one woman, in the foreground, who is gathering
flowers, looks up in thanksgiving. It is the picture of the Daily
Bread ; a large, calm scene, bathed in soft sky light, and giving the
opportunity for introducing charming groups of women. The
donor, a thin man with a pointed beard and bald forehead, who
has nevertheless been insisted upon before now as a portrait of
the painter (than whom nothing could be more unlike), stands just
behind Moses, who sits in front with the two jets of fire issuing
from his head. Daily Life, Daily Bread, and across the choir we
turn to the thought of another life and other food ; the Bread
eaten to Life everlasting. Here Tintoretto has, as in one great
climax, let himself go in imagination, and has brought all the store
of his resources to make his vision palpable to men. The canvas
is a large one, but as we look, it assumes much vaster proportions.
We behold a very spacious room, such as might belong to some
deserted palace which had fallen upon days of poverty and had
become an inn. A tessellated floor of various marbles stretches back
into the dark recesses, and Christ and His Disciples are gathered
at the board. After a fashion common in the sixteenth century,
they are ranged along one side, so as to be served from the front.
A great flaming cresset, hanging from the rafters, has lighted the
room until now, but its flame pales suddenly before the unearthly
114
To find what is perhaps the highest point he ever touched in
his symbolical treatment of light we must cross over to the
tiny island allotted to San Giorgio Maggiore. In the choir
hang two paintings, intended as companion pictures, illustrative
of the sacrifice of the Mass. If we compare the first, the
‘ Gathering of the Manna,’ with the same subject in San Rocco,
we see that the master has made choice of an entirely different
moment, and so has secured variety of incident. In the San
Rocco painting the falling of the manna is still a surprise and
a miracle ; the recipients rush forward holding baskets, and gather
it with every mark of astonishment and thanksgiving. In this
calm though busy scene before us all that is changed. The dwellers
in the wilderness are going on their way, pursuing their daily
avocations; they are bearing wood, drawing water, driving loaded
beasts, washing, cooking, spinning. The manna is there, it lies
all over the ground, almost unheeded, it can be gathered up at
any time; only one woman, in the foreground, who is gathering
flowers, looks up in thanksgiving. It is the picture of the Daily
Bread ; a large, calm scene, bathed in soft sky light, and giving the
opportunity for introducing charming groups of women. The
donor, a thin man with a pointed beard and bald forehead, who
has nevertheless been insisted upon before now as a portrait of
the painter (than whom nothing could be more unlike), stands just
behind Moses, who sits in front with the two jets of fire issuing
from his head. Daily Life, Daily Bread, and across the choir we
turn to the thought of another life and other food ; the Bread
eaten to Life everlasting. Here Tintoretto has, as in one great
climax, let himself go in imagination, and has brought all the store
of his resources to make his vision palpable to men. The canvas
is a large one, but as we look, it assumes much vaster proportions.
We behold a very spacious room, such as might belong to some
deserted palace which had fallen upon days of poverty and had
become an inn. A tessellated floor of various marbles stretches back
into the dark recesses, and Christ and His Disciples are gathered
at the board. After a fashion common in the sixteenth century,
they are ranged along one side, so as to be served from the front.
A great flaming cresset, hanging from the rafters, has lighted the
room until now, but its flame pales suddenly before the unearthly
114