EXHIBITION: tintoretto

until the 10th june, balanced on the top of the quirinal hill, you will find tintoretto. unfortunately, the genius himself left us on 31st may 1594 and the last of the tintoretto family died in 1657, but as melania g. mazzucco tells us in the text in the final room 'they left no offspring. only - but perhaps this is everything - their works'. so here, in the 'scuderie del quirinale', we find tintoretto's offspring.
the old stables provide the perfect exhibition space with a naturally divided interior reached by a fantastic sweeping stone staircase. once fininished with tintoretto and all of his wondrousness, the journey back down to the ground floor gives the visitor what is probably one of the best views in rome. unfortunately my experience was tainted somewhat by a group of middle-aged gaggling women pressed up against the glass; but from what i could see through the blowdries, twinsets and tweed jackets, rome was looking pretty good.

jacopo robusti (more commonly known as tintoretto) was a man who liked to involve everyone, it seems. in his paintings, we see the plasticity and fullness of michelangelo's human figures, the deep penetration of space used by raphael in the vatican apartments, and the loose brushwork of contemporary venetian painters such as titian, bassano and el greco; his clientele included doges, but also the lame; and of course, his paradiso which resides in the great council hall of the palazzo ducale in venice includes no less than 500 figures.

but although tintoretto desired to be 'everybody's painter', he miraculously manages to create his own unique style. he often places his figures 'on stage', with dramatic backdrops and signifant levels of action. if we take the miracle of st. mark as an example:

here, we see st. mark descending from heaven to free a slave from torture after he had disobeyed his master in order to worship the saint's relics. as soon as our eye falls upon this painting, we become 'the audience': the action is happening right before us on a stage framed on all sides by temples, scenery and standing with us, other viewers (see bottom left corner). it reminded me of ancient greek theatre. not only did the greeks often set their theatres into the edge of hills and mountains in order to create a beautiful and natural stage set, but they also used an advanced system called a mechane which was a type of crane that enabled characters on stage to be lifted into the air. the effect was called deus ex machina, literally meaning 'god out of the machine', and it was adopted by a number of greek playwrights to represent the deification of certain characters.  st. mark swooping into the scene, and indeed other flying figures by tintoretto, reminds us of this greek theatrical tradition. so what does this all mean? well, we all know (spero...) that renaissance or rinascimento means 'rebirth' in reference to the emanation of classical culture in the 15th and 16th centuries. so whether it is conscious or subconscious, what we see tintoretto doing here is defining this term 'renaissance' pictorally by harking back to the traditions of ancient greece. secondo me...

on the other hand, whilst adopting this unique style, there are definitely elements of other artists work in his own. this got me thinking about the development of technique and style between one artist and another, leading me to see why caravaggio was perhaps so controversial... had anyone used a famous roman courtesan to model for a painting of the virgin mary before? no. had anyone decided to plunge their figures into complete darkness, lit only by a severe spotlight? no. he really was the first one to throw a massive spanner in the works. however, if we have a look at the following three paintings, we can recognise a strong thread between each artist's style:

perugino panel in sequence of the life of jesus in the sistine chapel, painted between 1477-1483.

raphael's school of athens, painted between 1510-1511.

tintoretto's st.mark's body brought to venice, painted between 1562-1566.

as well as seeing common ground (literally...) in the development of painting, i also noticed that a lot of the subject matter treated by tintoretto is not far off from the goings on of our own 21st century world. take his joseph flees from the advances of posiphar's wife, in which we see joseph rejecting poor old posiphar who lies naked and humiliated on a four poster bed; rejection being a subject matter  with which we are all familiar (not speaking from personal experience at all...). or if we look at his fantastic painting showing vulcan walking in on venus and mars having an affair, i could think of only two words: ryan giggs. and finally, something i found highly amusing, was a portrait done by domenico robusti, tintoretto's son. hung towards the end of the exhibition, next to tintoretto's last few works where his painting is of a mature style and subject matter, is the portrait of a woman bearing her breasts. in this painting, finely executed for a man of his age, a woman is shown in profile doing what it says on the tin: flashing. for me, this struck up a similarity between 25 year old men in the 16th century and 25 year old contemporaries of mine in the 21st...

the only difference is, it was domenico's sister...

for more information on the exhibition, as well as others taking place in the scuderie del quirinale, visit Scuderie del Quirinale.