Detail View: Visual Resources Teaching Collection: Young Lady (Self-Portrait?)

aahi0000011

Young Lady (Self-Portrait?)

Self-Portrait

full view

1553 or 1555

creation

Jacopo Tintoretto (Italian, 1519-1594)

male

Venetian painter. His nickname derives from his father's profession of cloth-dyer (tintore). He quickly developed a highly personal and idiosyncratic style and ran a large workshop offering quick turnover at competitive prices. Three of his children became artists and worked in his studio. Domenico (1560–1635) assisted his father on many major projects including the decoration of the Doge's palace but lacked individual artistic personality. Marietta (c.1554–c.1590) appears to have specialized in portraiture (Self-Portrait, Florence, Uffizi). Little beyond the bare outlines is known of Tintoretto's life and early training. He is said to have worked briefly in the studio of Titian, and the style of his early work suggests the influence of Schiavone, Pordenone, Paris Bordone, and Bonifazio de'Pitati (1487–1553). As a man he was quite unlike Titian, and attracted a different kind of patron, middle-class rather than aristocratic. He spent almost all his life in Venice, working largely for religious confraternities (scuole). He appears to have been unpopular due to unscrupulous tactics in procuring commissions. According to his biographer Ridolfi, Tintoretto was practising as an independent artist by 1539 when he collaborated with Schiavone and others in the production of cassone panels. During the 1540s, he appears to have received commissions for large narrative religious paintings, often intended for secondary positions on the side walls of chapels in Venetian churches. This may have stimulated him to experiment with perspective to take account of the viewer's position in the central nave—for instance in the Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples (Madrid, Prado), c.1547–8, painted for the right wall of S. Marcuola, Venice. Public recognition appears to have followed his S. Mark Rescuing the Slave (1547–8; Venice, Accademia), commissioned for the Scuola Grande di S. Marco. Its disturbing foreshortening and the contorted limbs of the protagonists heralded the advent of a new, more violent Mannerist style than that displayed by such artists as Schiavone. This was quickly followed by S. Roch Healing the Victims of the Plague for S. Rocco, Venice, in 1549, notable above all for its dramatic chiaroscuro. Paintings such as Cain Killing Abel, Creation of the Animals, Original Sin (1550–3; Venice, Accademia), commissioned by the Scuola della Trinità, seem to confirm Ridolfi's assertion that Tintoretto aimed to combine Titian's colour with Michelangelo's disegno. Roman influence (in particular Daniele da Volterra) is also apparent in the Deposition (Edinburgh, NG Scotland) painted for the Basso chapel, S. Francesco della Vigna. In the early 1560s Tintoretto was to be found working on the vast choir paintings, including the Last Judgement, at the church of the Madonna dell'Orto. At about the same time, in 1562, he was also commissioned to produce three extremely large-scale paintings for the Scuola Grande di S. Marco: the Removal of the Body of S. Mark from the Funeral Pyre (Venice, Accademia); the Finding of the Body of S. Mark (Milan, Brera); and S. Mark Saving the Saracen. It is here that one can best visualize Tintoretto employing the working technique described by his contemporary Marco Boschini, making small wax models which he arranged on a stage both to set the design and experiment with spotlights for effects of light and shade. The scenes depicted in these canvases appear to be set within deeply foreshortened boxlike spaces with an irrational pattern of light and shadow. A major turning point in Tintoretto's career is marked by his election in 1565 to the confraternity of the Scuola Grande di S. Rocco and his commission to paint a series of paintings in situ for the Sala dell'Albergo: The Crucifixion (1565), followed by the Road to Calvary, Christ before Pilate and Ecce Homo in c.1566–7. According to Vasari, Tintoretto obtained this commission by means of dirty tricks, having pre-empted the competition by donating and installing the ceiling canvas of S. Roch in Glory in 1564. The scenes from the Passion, by virtue of their size, uncompromising realism, and rude energy, make an unforgettable impact and would continue to fascinate north Italian artists (the Lombard G. C. Procaccini for instance) well into the next century. And from 1575 to 1588 Tintoretto would continue to work for the confraternity on a regular basis. He first executed the ceiling of the Sala Superiore—Brazen Serpent, Moses Striking the Rock, Gathering of the Manna (1575–7)—and went on to undertake a large series of paintings of the life of Christ for the walls of the same room (1578–81). It would be easy but cynical to suggest that Tintoretto's fa presto style was inspired by commercial considerations, after he agreed to produce three pictures each year for an annual stipend of 100 ducats. The predominant stylistic development evident in this series is a further loosening and simplification of human forms, an almost expressionist and summary treatment of landscape, and a roughness of technique and lack of finish that distressed Vasari. Yet this cycle of pictures claims our attention as one of the great monuments of Venetian Renaissance painting, defying all central Italian conventions about disegno and decorum, rational perspective or lighting, but achieving a visionary intensity that later, in the mid-19th century, fired the imagination of John Ruskin, who recognized its spiritual and moral power. Tintoretto concluded his work at the Scuola di San Rocco with a series of paintings of the life of the Virgin for the ground-floor room (1583–7) and an altarpiece of the Vision of S. Roch (1588). Although Tintoretto painted a few pictures for important foreign patrons—Origin of the Milky Way (c.1577; London, NG) for the Emperor Rudolf II, and the Nativity (1583; Madrid, Escorial) for King Philip II of Spain, he did not enjoy the international success of Titian or even receive the aristocratic patronage that sustained Veronese. This also affected his practice as a portrait painter, which was probably inhibited by the provincial context of most of his commissions, generally pictures of local dignitaries destined to hang in public buildings. At best, as in Vincenzo Morosoni (c.1580; London, NG), they convey human dignity and frailty as well as the external trappings of power and wealth. Tintoretto's career in Venice ended on a high note with the commission for the Paradise ceiling in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio of the Doge's palace (1588–90); but only after Veronese, who had won the initial competition in 1579–82, had died without fulfilling the contract. (Grove Art Online accessed 2007-10-02)

Marietta Tintoretto (Italian, ca. 1554-1590)

female

Daughter of (1) Jacopo Tintoretto. She was taught by her father and assisted him in his workshop. It is said that while young, he had her dress like a boy and follow him everywhere. As his favourite daughter, Jacopo also had her married to a local jeweller to keep her near him. Marietta does not appear to have received commissions for major religious paintings, and, like other women artists in this period, she worked primarily as a portrait painter. Apart from a Self-portrait (Florence, Uffizi), no work can be assigned to her with certainty. The three portraits attributed to her in Madrid (Prado) include a possible self-portrait. The only surviving painting that may be signed by her is a Portrait of Two Men (Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister), which bears the initials mr. Ridolfi wrote that her portrait of the antiquarian and collector Jacopo Strada attracted the attention of Emperor Maximilian II, who enquired about her employment as court painter. However, this may be a mistaken reference to her father's portrait of Strada's son Ottavio Strada (Amsterdam, Stedel. Mus.). Philip II of Spain apparently showed a similar interest in Marietta's work. A few small religious paintings are attributed to her, including two pictures of the Virgin and Child (both Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.), and her work as an assistant is thought to be evident in certain of her father's paintings (e.g. St Agnes Reviving Licinio, c. 1578–9; Venice, Madonna dell'Orto). Two drawings after models (Milan, Rassini priv. col.) are also assigned to her and were probably executed while she was in her father's workshop. (Grove Art Online Accessed 2006-07-27)

museum attributes to Jacopo Tintoretto

once attributed to Marietta Tintoretto

16th century

Italian Renaissance-Baroque styles

women (female humans)

pearls (animal material)

portraits

oil paintings

paintings (visual works)

paintings

oil on canvas

98 cm (H) x 75.5 cm (W)

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

repository

48

accession

Vienna, Austria

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