Eternal Tintoretto

Jacomo Robusti, nicknamed "Tintoretto" in reference to his father’s profession as a dyer, stands as one of the major figures of 16th-century painting. He remained in Venice his entire life, where his ambition found fertile ground: it was in this city with its strong artistic influence that his exceptionally long career unfolded. While his training remains little known, he established himself by the late 1540s with prestigious commissions such as the Miracle of the Slave (1548). With the support of a vast workshop, he dominated the market for large decorative cycles intended for the city’s institutions in the second half of the century, such as the Doge’s Palace (fresco of Paradise, starting in 1588) or the Scuola Grande di San Rocco (from 1564 to 1588).

Revealing the full modernity of his art, the exhibition highlights the singularity of an artist endowed with incredible creative energy, whom Vasari described as the "most terrible brain that painting has ever known" (1568). A complex and unclassifiable artist, Tintoretto developed a body of work that was as admired as it was debated, characterized by bold compositions, dizzying perspectives, spectacular lighting effects, and the liveliness of his brushwork—the famous prestezza. By creating an original synthesis between the sculptural drawing (disegno) of the Tuscan masters, particularly that of Michelangelo who fascinated him, and the Venetian colorito of Titian, his rival, he brought the Renaissance in Venice to its zenith.

Bringing together around forty paintings and graphic works from public and private collections in France, Italy, and internationally, the exhibition offers a thematic journey that allows visitors to grasp the diversity and breadth of Tintoretto’s work around several axes. Major religious compositions, such as the Miracle of Saint Augustine (1547-1549, Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza) or the Trinity (c. 1561-1562, Galleria Sabauda, Turin), for example, testify to his ability to renew sacred subjects through dramatic interpretation.