S. L. Bensusan

“ The modern work suffers more from neglect and disregard than that of the great masters of old time, because nowadays it is possible to multiply the lowest and most popular class of picture and scatter it broadcast among those who have no knowledge of the aims and objects of art. They think that a picture is bound to be a good one if it should chance to appeal to them, forgetful that their lack of taste may have as much as anything to do with the appeal29 of the work. ”

“ The first church to give him a commission would seem to be that of Santa Maria del Carmine, and the impression that he gave to his masters must have been a very favourable one, for we find that the churches of St. Benedetto and Santo Spirito gave him orders soon after. Then the Scuola della Trinita recognised his talent, and gave him an order for certain pictures, including the famous "Death of Abel" and the equally famous "Adam and Eve," of which John Ruskin said, "this in absolute power of painting is the supremest work in all the world." ”

“ Tintoretto had now reached the time when his work could no longer be ignored, and even Florence which looked askance at art in Venice elected the painter a member of its Academy, an honour that was conferred also upon Titian, Paul Veronese, and a few smaller men.
Throughout all the years in which the painter's art was maturing, and the circle of his patrons was widening, he seems to have lived a quiet and uneventful life in Venice, seeking friends in his own circle, labouring diligently in his studio, and never permitting the claims of affairs lying outside his work to tempt him to be idle. ”

“ A picture may please an observer because the picture is great or because the observer is small, but the latter alternative is hardly popular with those who go conscientiously to galleries.
Vasari tells us many stories of Tintoretto's inexhaustible activity. Ridolfi does the same, and it is easy to understand why a man who could not keep his brush from his hand for any length of time, and would accept any price or any commission rather than remain idle, was rather a terror to his contemporaries, and earned the title of "Il Furioso" by which he was widely known. ”

“ The "Paradise," for example, in the Council Hall, is more than twenty-five yards long, and is such a work as many a painter would have given the greater part of his life to; but Tintoretto had little more than six years to live when he undertook the work, and there is no doubt that while the brain behind the picture was always his, the hand was sometimes that of his son or one of his pupils. ”

“ It is a significant fact, at the service of those who accept the theory of jealousy, that throughout the years when Tintoretto was struggling for recognition Titian had no eyes for his young pupil's work, and was only led to praise a picture by seeing it unsigned and exhibited in the open. There were times when the elder painter could have placed commissions in the young man's way, but he seems to have preferred to help others, of whom Paolo Cagliari, known as the Veronese, is the only man whose work retains a large place in the public eye. ”

“ Artists do not come into this world ready made, and the period of the making depends upon the man. For many, life is not long enough, and it is one of the tragedies of16 art work that the mastery over technical difficulties is sometimes delayed until the eye is becoming dim and the hand uncertain. From the very first we find that Tintoretto was immersed in the affairs of his art, that he could not hold his hand, that he laboured with feverish energy, that no commission was despised, and that nothing was too large or too small for him to undertake. ”

“ The artist of the day was sculptor and architect as well; sometimes he was engineer and statesman, he took every field of activity for his labours, and certainly the success of the great men whose range of endeavour was so wide was quite remarkable. Happily the Venetians were less ambitious. Bellini, who is, in the colour sense, the father of Venetian art, had a comparatively restricted outlook. Titian, his pupil, went farther afield and divorced art from the church, doubtless Giorgione had he lived would have helped to make that divorce more effective. ”

“ The Royal Palace, and that of Prince Giovanelli, are very rich in the fruit of Tintoretto's labours, while the Academy of Fine Arts from which a part of the pictures given here were taken, holds some of the painter's masterpieces in really favourable positions.
In the Doges' Palace the neck and back of the man who wishes to study Tintoretto must endure constant strain, and the great compositions are so hard to understand that headache often anticipates comprehension, and appreciation gets no chance. ”

“ Candle smoke respects neither madonna nor saint, and though raised with the best intentions, will destroy masterpiece or daub with equal certainty and indifference. In Tintoretto's time piety was more fashionable than art criticism, and his pictures have suffered very much from the devotion they have inspired in the breasts of those to whom candles were a short-cut to salvation. ”

“ Inasmuch as he did not place a high value upon his own work, it was unreasonable to expect that his patrons would fall into the error of over-praising it. In setting a value upon their own work most men remember that they are sellers, nor is it the business of buyers to raise the price. ”

“ But one, Carlo Ridolfi, who was born about the time when Tintoretto died, towards the close of the sixteenth century, tells us that the "little dyer," whose name is written so large in the history of sixteenth-century art, started very early to practise drawing, and used his father's working material in order to give his productions the colour they seemed to need. That he must have shown signs of uncommon talent at an early age is shown by the fact that he found his way to the studio or workshop of Titian, the greatest painter in the Venice of his time ”

“ In Venice, on the other hand, many a church from which65 the hurried tourist turns aside holds one or more of Tintoretto's masterpieces, and if it is well hung and has escaped the troublesome attentions of restorer and candle-burner, it will well repay quiet study.
The story that a great picture has to tell travels far beyond its own subject-matter, and the quality of that imagination which is associated with all great work is seen in a very high degree in many a church picture by the great Venetian master. ”

“ One pauses to wonder how he would have regarded Schopenhauer's criticism of the female form.
Tintoretto had two sons, who became his pupils when they were old enough; he was more fortunate in his family than was his great master and rival, and his home life would seem to have been a tranquil one, because we have learned from Vasari that he was a good musician, and played well on several instruments. Music does not flourish in unhappy homes. ”

“ Venice was full of artists; commissions did not always depend upon merit, influence and favour counted for a great deal, and the clever son of an obscure dye-worker could hardly reach the goal of his ambitions without a long period of waiting. ”

“ We have already traced the descent to the modern school of impressionism, but he would be a bold man who would say that the influence of Tintoretto is exhausted, or holds that he has nothing to teach the twentieth century. His light will hardly grow dim as long as his painting has a claim upon the attention of civilised men. ”

“ Students of Tintoretto will not fail to note the resemblance between the flying figure here and the one in "The Miracle of the Slave" in the Venetian Academy.
24 The general feeling about Jacopo Robusti is perhaps summed up by Giorgio Vasari in his "Lives." "He is a great lover of the arts," says our gossip; "he delights in playing on various musical instruments; he is a very agreeable person, but as far as painting is concerned he has the most capricious hand, and the boldest, most extravagant, and most obstinate brain that ever belonged to painter. ”

“ Then, again, clever lads are not always tactful, and an unbridled tongue may make hosts of enemies, and destroy the atmosphere of repose in which alone good work is possible. A brilliant painter might well have been a little intolerant of precocious pupils.
Entering into detail, Ridolfi tells us in his life of the painter that when Tintoretto12 was at work in Titian's studio he copied some of the master's pictures so cleverly that Titian told one of his other pupils to send the boy away, and Robusti was dismissed from the studio without explanation. ”

“ So a very great man passed out of the life of Venice, and for a brief while his fame79 slumbered, but in years to come great artists, Velazquez foremost among them, made the great city of the Adriatic a place of pilgrimage for his sake. ”

“ As a young man he revelled in bright colours, but in middle and old age their charm passed. There is something very human about this attitude towards externals. Tintoretto placed a very great importance upon drawing, more importance indeed than any of the Venetians had placed upon it before his time. He thought very little of copies from the nude, being43 no believer in the beauty of the average nude form, and holding that the hand of the artist is necessary in order to express to the full the beauty that the lines of the body suggest. ”

“ There are some workers to whom enforced idleness would be fatal, and Tintoretto might have been one of them, but for the fact that he had no capacity36 for indolence, and would work even though he worked for nothing. ”

“ He worked so rapidly that the people to whom he applied in the first instance for commissions were a little suspicious. They could not understand how a man who painted with lightning rapidity and was prepared to sell his labour for any price, however small, could claim to be taken seriously. ”

“ The brotherhood could say no more, for they dare not refuse a gift offered to their patron, and so the picture was accepted, and the brethren had to make their peace as best they55 could with the angry and disappointed competitors."
It would be pleasing to write at length about the work that Tintoretto contributed to the buildings of the brotherhood, but in the appendix to his third volume of the "Stones of Venice," John Ruskin has dealt so completely and so admirably with the master that those who are interested will find all they seek in his pages. ”

“ This portrait (note the Maltese crosses on the cloak) is a splendid example of Tintoretto's gifts as a portrait painter. It should be remembered that three or four hundred years have helped the restorer's arts to spoil much of the painter's work. ”

“ They would often grant permanent pay and regular work to37 the man whose accomplishment satisfied their requirements, and the work that remains to us shows that the directors of the Scuoli were men of taste and discretion. ”