Book Description
Jacopo Tintoretto (151894) is an ambiguous figure in the history of art. His radically unorthodox paintings are not readily classifiable and although Venetian by birth, his claim to be truly of the Venetian School has long been in doubt. As a youth, he was quickly ejected from the workshop of the great Titian, accepted then, as now, as the apogee of Venetian painting. In the long career which nonetheless followed, Tintoretto increasingly abandoned the humanist narratives and sensual color values which typified the work of Titian and the venerable Venetian Renaissance tradition. Critics and writers such as Vasari, Boschini, Ruskin and Sartre have all placed Tintoretto in total opposition to the established artistic practice of his time. But this view offers an over-simple and ahistorical answer to the question of Tintorettos relation to tradition. Tom Nichols offers an important re-assessment of Tintorettos place in art history. Far from rejecting existing artistic practice, Tintoretto began by seeking to create an up-to-date manner of painting and an artistic manner which, for all its originality and sophistication, made its first appeal to the shared emotions of the widest possible viewing audience.
About the author
Tom Nichols is a Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He has contributed to New Interpretations of Venetian Renaissance Painting (1994) and provided the entry on Tintoretto for Macmillans The Dictionary of Art (1996).
