He was one of the very great artists of the world, and the most rapid workman
in the whole Renaissance period. There are to-day, after centuries of decay,
fire, theft, and repainting, yards upon yards of Tintoretto's canvases rotting
upon the walls of the Venetian churches. He produced an enormous amount of work,
and, what is to be regretted, much of it was contract work or experimental
sketching. This has given his art a rather bad name,
oil paintings for sale, but judged by his best
works in the Ducal Palace and the Academy at Venice, he will not be found
lacking. Even in his masterpiece (The Miracle of the Slave) he is "Il Furioso,"
as they used to call him; but his thunderbolt style is held in check by
wonderful grace, strength of modelling, superb contrasts of light with shade,
and a coloring of flesh and robes not unworthy of the very greatest. He was a
man who worked in the white heat of passion,
art oil paintings online, with much imagination and
invention. As a technician he sought difficulties rather than avoided them.
There is some antagonism between form and color, but Tintoretto tried to
reconcile them. The result was sometimes clashing, but no one could have done
better with them than he did. He was a fine draughtsman, a good colorist, and a
master of light. As a brushman he was a superior man, but not equal to
Titian.
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Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), the fourth great Venetian, did not follow the
line direction set by Tintoretto, but carried out the original color-leaning of
the school. He came a little later than Tintoretto, and his art was a reflection
of the advancing Renaissance, wherein simplicity was destined to lose itself in
complexity, grandeur, and display. Paolo came on the very crest of the
Renaissance wave, when art, risen to its greatest height, was gleaming in that
transparent splendor that precedes the fall.
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FIG. 50.—P. VERONESE. VENICE ENTHRONED. DUCAL PAL., VENICE.
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The great bulk of his work had a large decorative motive behind it. Almost
all of the late Venetian work was of that character. Hence it was brilliant in
color, elaborate in subject, and grand in scale. Splendid robes, hangings,
furniture, architecture, jewels, armor, appeared everywhere, and not in flat,
lustreless hues, but with that brilliancy which they possess in nature. Drapery
gave way to clothing,
abstract oil painting on canvas, and texture-painting was introduced even in the largest
canvases. Scenes from Scripture and legend turned into grand pageants of
Venetian glory, and the facial expression of the characters rather passed out in
favor of telling masses of color to be seen at a distance upon wall or ceiling. It was
pomp and glory carried to the highest pitch, but with all seriousness of mood
and truthfulness in art. It was beyond Titian in variety, richness, ornament,
abstract oil painting on canvas, facility; but it was perhaps below Titian in sentiment, sobriety, and depth of
insight. Titian, with all his sensuous beauty, did appeal to the higher
intelligence, while Paolo and his companions appealed more positively to the eye
by luxurious color-setting and magnificence of invention. The decadence came
after Paolo, but not with him. His art was the most gorgeous of the Venetian
school, and by many is ranked the highest of all, but perhaps it is better to
say it was the height. Those who came after brought about the decline by
striving to imitate his splendor, and thereby falling into extravagance.
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These are the four great Venetians—the men of first rank. Beside them and
around them were many other painters, placed in the second rank, who in any
other time or city would have held first place.
Palma il Vecchio
(1480?-1528) was so excellent in many ways that it seems unjust to speak of him
as a secondary painter. He was not, however, a great original mind, though in
many respects a perfect painter. He was influenced by Bellini at first, and then
by Giorgione. In subject there was nothing dramatic about him, and he carries
chiefly by his portrayal of quiet, dignified, and beautiful Venetians under the
names of saints and holy families. The St. Barbara is an example of this, and
one of the most majestic figures in all painting.
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FIG. 51.—LOTTO. THREE AGES.
PITTI.
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