DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68745#0247
PORTRAITS AND DRAWINGS
the hands of the great Venetian. Velazquez, whose sombre greys
and browns differ from Tintoretto’s colouring as much as his
quiet spirit of observation does from the latter’s fiery intuition,
yet studied him, drew from him, bought his pictures and consider-
ably altered and developed his own style, after his first journey to
Italy; appreciating to the full Tintoretto’s emotional genius and
his inexhaustible power of representation. The extension of space,
the illusion of depth, the air circulating between the objects, are
characteristics of Tintoretto to which Professor Justi draws atten-
tion, as being stamped on the later style of Velazquez.
Nor can we forget that the 4 Crucifixion ’ was in all its first
glory when there stood before it a young Flemish artist who had
acquired the technical skill of the masters of his native land, but
who only in Venice found that education of the spirit, that spur to
the imagination which he drank in to such purpose, so that his
motto, to paraphrase that of the Venetian, might have been ‘the
colour of Veronese and the action of Tintoretto.’ The earlier
master, a true son of Venice, could touch the extreme limit of the
dramatic interest without becoming, as Rubens too often does,
vulgar and theatrical, but Rubens caught an inspiration that his
more prosaic school could never have suggested.
We may even contend that Tintoretto shares with others the
responsibility of having influenced Sir Joshua Reynolds. That
master in his Discourses draws attention to the tendency of the
Eastern ideal of colouring to overflow and extend to other nations.
4 By them,’ he says, 4 that is by Tintoretto and Veronese above all,
a style merely ornamental has been disseminated throughout all
Europe. Rubens carried it into Flanders, Voet to France, and
Luca Giordano to Spain and Naples.’ 4 To which,’ says a recent
critic of Reynolds’ precepts, 4 he might have added, 44 and I
myself to England,” ’ for though he had only stayed a few weeks in
Venice, her painters had made a profound impression on him, and
he demonstrates in his work his own intense appreciation of that
school of colour, against which he is never tired of warning his
followers.
141
the hands of the great Venetian. Velazquez, whose sombre greys
and browns differ from Tintoretto’s colouring as much as his
quiet spirit of observation does from the latter’s fiery intuition,
yet studied him, drew from him, bought his pictures and consider-
ably altered and developed his own style, after his first journey to
Italy; appreciating to the full Tintoretto’s emotional genius and
his inexhaustible power of representation. The extension of space,
the illusion of depth, the air circulating between the objects, are
characteristics of Tintoretto to which Professor Justi draws atten-
tion, as being stamped on the later style of Velazquez.
Nor can we forget that the 4 Crucifixion ’ was in all its first
glory when there stood before it a young Flemish artist who had
acquired the technical skill of the masters of his native land, but
who only in Venice found that education of the spirit, that spur to
the imagination which he drank in to such purpose, so that his
motto, to paraphrase that of the Venetian, might have been ‘the
colour of Veronese and the action of Tintoretto.’ The earlier
master, a true son of Venice, could touch the extreme limit of the
dramatic interest without becoming, as Rubens too often does,
vulgar and theatrical, but Rubens caught an inspiration that his
more prosaic school could never have suggested.
We may even contend that Tintoretto shares with others the
responsibility of having influenced Sir Joshua Reynolds. That
master in his Discourses draws attention to the tendency of the
Eastern ideal of colouring to overflow and extend to other nations.
4 By them,’ he says, 4 that is by Tintoretto and Veronese above all,
a style merely ornamental has been disseminated throughout all
Europe. Rubens carried it into Flanders, Voet to France, and
Luca Giordano to Spain and Naples.’ 4 To which,’ says a recent
critic of Reynolds’ precepts, 4 he might have added, 44 and I
myself to England,” ’ for though he had only stayed a few weeks in
Venice, her painters had made a profound impression on him, and
he demonstrates in his work his own intense appreciation of that
school of colour, against which he is never tired of warning his
followers.
141