DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0218
TINTORETTO
We ask ourselves what it is that preserves the order and
harmony of the wellnigh innumerable throng. The artist has
used no architectural framework, has brought no arbitrary
divisions to his aid; there are no sections of opposing colours by
which to distinguish the various circles. The mantles and mitres of
the prelates, the cardinal’s cloak of St. Jerome, give gleams of gold
and scarlet, but on the whole the colour, though not unvaried, is
in soft harmonies, chiefly of a deep greenish-blue and dull crimson,
and showing no decided contrasts. And the answer is, it is light
and shade alone which discipline and control the masses, rolling in
and out of the closely related forms, determining the planes, intro-
ducing the most delicate modulation of tones, and communicating
to the whole a shimmer of vibrating air.
And the form taken by this triumphant play of chiaroscuro is
determined by that poem which three hundred years before had
moved all Italy and which has never loosed its hold upon the
imagination of successive centuries.
As poetic genius had created the poem, so once more artistic
genius was to find in the interpretation of the poem its fullest
opportunity, and the Paradise described by Dante gave in
broad lines the inspiration to Tintoretto. This is the more
significant as the subject is not one attempted by the
Venetian school, nor does Michelangelo show the influence
of Dante in any marked degree, but near by at Padua was that
‘ Paradiso ’ of Giotto’s which, with many of the other paintings
there, is an epitome of the great Florentine’s poem, and though
the Venetians probably thought little of the primitives, we have
indications that Tintoretto was not above accepting suggestions
from them.
In the Louvre study the eleven apostles sit on either side of
the Throne, and at the foot is the group described by Dante; the
Prophets mingled with the Fathers of the Church, St. Gregory
conspicuous among them, Augustine, Francis, Benedict and the
rest, and in their midst ‘ the mighty Baptist,’ while below as he
describes, is the throng of children. The great picture as at length
completed, is full of incidents for which we can find lines in Dante,
and most especially the composition adheres to those concentric
circles which are the poet’s unique conception of the scene.
126
We ask ourselves what it is that preserves the order and
harmony of the wellnigh innumerable throng. The artist has
used no architectural framework, has brought no arbitrary
divisions to his aid; there are no sections of opposing colours by
which to distinguish the various circles. The mantles and mitres of
the prelates, the cardinal’s cloak of St. Jerome, give gleams of gold
and scarlet, but on the whole the colour, though not unvaried, is
in soft harmonies, chiefly of a deep greenish-blue and dull crimson,
and showing no decided contrasts. And the answer is, it is light
and shade alone which discipline and control the masses, rolling in
and out of the closely related forms, determining the planes, intro-
ducing the most delicate modulation of tones, and communicating
to the whole a shimmer of vibrating air.
And the form taken by this triumphant play of chiaroscuro is
determined by that poem which three hundred years before had
moved all Italy and which has never loosed its hold upon the
imagination of successive centuries.
As poetic genius had created the poem, so once more artistic
genius was to find in the interpretation of the poem its fullest
opportunity, and the Paradise described by Dante gave in
broad lines the inspiration to Tintoretto. This is the more
significant as the subject is not one attempted by the
Venetian school, nor does Michelangelo show the influence
of Dante in any marked degree, but near by at Padua was that
‘ Paradiso ’ of Giotto’s which, with many of the other paintings
there, is an epitome of the great Florentine’s poem, and though
the Venetians probably thought little of the primitives, we have
indications that Tintoretto was not above accepting suggestions
from them.
In the Louvre study the eleven apostles sit on either side of
the Throne, and at the foot is the group described by Dante; the
Prophets mingled with the Fathers of the Church, St. Gregory
conspicuous among them, Augustine, Francis, Benedict and the
rest, and in their midst ‘ the mighty Baptist,’ while below as he
describes, is the throng of children. The great picture as at length
completed, is full of incidents for which we can find lines in Dante,
and most especially the composition adheres to those concentric
circles which are the poet’s unique conception of the scene.
126