William Michael Rossetti

“ Some of his dicta on art have been recorded as follows by Ridolfi: “the art of painting remains increasingly difficult"; “painters in youth should adhere to the best masters, these being Michelangelo and Titian, and should be strict in representing the natural forms”; “the first glance at a picture is the crucial one"; “black and white, as developing form, are the best of colours”; “drawing is the foundation of a painter's work, but drawing from life in the nude should only be essayed by well-practised men, as the real is often wanting in beauty.”
Of pupils Robusti had very few ”

“ In this respect he was a decided innovator; but he had many imitators, comparatively feeble if we except Paul Veronese.
Tintoret scarcely ever travelled out of Venice. He loved all the arts, played in youth the lute and various instruments, some of them of his own invention, and designed theatrical costumes and properties, was versed in mechanics and mechanical devices, and was a very agreeable companion. For the sake of his work he lived in a most retired fashion, and even when not painting was wont to remain in his working room surrounded by casts. ”

“ The knitted strength and the transcendent fervour of energy of the supreme Florentine might to some extent be emulated; but, if they were to be united with the glowing fusion of hue of the supreme Venetian, this could only be attained by a process of relaxing the excessive tension and modifying muscular into elastic force. ”

“ For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed “Il Furioso." An agreement is extant showing that he undertook to finish in two months two historical pictures each containing twenty figures, seven being portraits. The number of his portraits is enormous; their merit is unequal, but the really fine ones cannot be surpassed. Sebastiano del Piombo remarked that Robusti could paint in two days as much as himself in two years; Annibale Caracci that Tintoret was in many pictures equal to Titian, in others inferior to Tintoret. ”

“ It was probably in 1560, the year in which he began working in the Scuola di S. Rocco, that Tintoret commenced his numerous paintings in the ducal palace; he then executed there a portrait of the doge, Girolamo Priuli. Other works which were destroyed in the great fire of 1577 succeeded—the “Excommunication of Frederick Barbarossa by Pope Alexander III.” and the “Victory of Lepanto.” After the fire Tintoret started afresh, Paul Veronese being his colleague ”