Tintoretto

Jacopo Robusti, nicknamed Tintoretto (meaning "little dyer" or "dyer's boy"), was born in Venice in 1518 and died on 31 May 1594. His father, Battista, worked as a dyer—tintore in Italian—which gave the son his famous moniker. He had at least one brother, Domenico, though a shaky 17th-century account claims there were 22 siblings. The family likely came from Brescia in Lombardy, then part of the Republic of Venice; older studies suggested Lucca in Tuscany.

Little is known of Tintoretto's childhood or training. Early biographers Carlo Ridolfi and Marco Boschini wrote that his only formal apprenticeship was with Titian, who kicked him out after just a few days—either from jealousy of such a promising student (Ridolfi) or a personality clash (Boschini). After that, the two artists had a bitter relationship, though Tintoretto kept admiring Titian, who in turn disparaged him along with his followers. Tintoretto then taught himself with intense dedication. According to Ridolfi, he worked alongside artisans painting mythological scenes on furniture, studied anatomy by drawing live models and dissecting corpses, and lived frugally while collecting casts, bas-reliefs, and prints. Sometime in the 1540s, he acquired models of Michelangelo's Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Night, which he and his workshop drew from many angles on blue paper. He often worked through the night. His lofty artistic ideals and ambition showed in the motto he hung over his studio: "Michelangelo's drawing and Titian's colour."

Tintoretto's early career included a close friendship with the younger painter Andrea Schiavone, whom he helped with wall paintings for free—a tactic he used to win commissions. His first two murals, *Belshazzar's Feast* and a *Cavalry Fight*, are lost, as are all his frescoes. The first work to gain real notice was a nocturnal portrait of himself and his brother playing a guitar, also lost. Titian praised a subsequent historical subject. Surviving early works include the *Presentation of Jesus in the Temple* (around 1542) in the church of the Carmine, and the *Annunciation* and *Christ with the Woman of Samaria* in S. Benedetto. For the Scuola della Trinità, he painted four scenes from Genesis; two—*Adam and Eve* and the *Death of Abel*—are now in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice and show he was already a master painter despite no formal training. Until 2012, *The Embarkation of St Helena in the Holy Land* was wrongly attributed to Schiavone; new analysis revealed it as part of a Tintoretto series on St Helena and the Holy Cross. That painting is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, while its companions, *The Discovery of the True Cross* and *St Helen Testing the True Cross*, are in US galleries.

In 1548, Tintoretto landed a major commission for the Scuola di S. Marco: the *Miracle of the Slave*. He took extraordinary care with the composition, knowing it could make his reputation. The painting shows a Christian slave saved from torture by the evangelist Mark, who shatters the bone-breaking and blinding tools. The work is marked by theatricality, unusual colors, and vigorous execution. It was a triumph, though some criticized it. Tintoretto's friend Pietro Aretino praised the slave figure but warned him against rushing. The success brought many more commissions, including *Saint Roch Cures the Plague Victims* (1549) for the church of San Rocco, one of his early *laterali*—large horizontal paintings for Venetian chapel side walls.