What, then, are some of the qualities of Tintoret’s genius? First of
all, he had vast scope: Christian and classic lore, the legend and
story of Venice, contemporary scenes, and portraiture,--all these lay
within his province. But scope alone, unguided by rarer powers, does
not suffice for the equipment of the supreme master. Rubens had scope,
even Doré had it, and neither ranks among the foremost. In Tintoret it
was accompanied by a most intense imagination, which penetrated to the
elemental reality and understood the intertangled relations of life.
Imagination operated through him with a vigor more like Nature’s own
than that of any other man except Shakespeare; a vigor which seems at
once inexhaustible and effortless, which never wastes and never scants.
In creating a beggar or a seraph he expended just as much energy as
was necessary for each; you do not feel that one was harder for him
than the other. Tintoret’s creations have this further resemblance
to Shakespeare’s: _they live!_ You do not exclaim, “This is a great
picture!” but, “This is a great scene!” He is like a traveler who
brings back views from a strange country: albeit you have never been
there, yet the views are so real, the figures are painted so freely
and lifelike, and not in conscious or conventional attitudes, that you
cannot doubt their faithfulness, and are absorbed by the wonders and
beauties they present.
Tintoret never conspires to startle you by sensational devices. Even
in those works where he is most daring he is really painting what his
imagination saw naturally, and is no more bent on inventing oddities
and marvels than was John in the _Apocalypse_. Before beginning a
Biblical or an historical subject, he seems to have asked himself,
“How did this look to a bystander?” and he relies upon the actuality
of the scene to produce the desired impression. He has been charged,
sometimes, with making Christ and his disciples too vulgar. Other
painters have so accustomed you to look for a kingly personage in
Christ, and for princely garments on his followers, that when you
first see a “Last Supper”: by Tintoret you miss the habitual elegance;
for he shows you simple and earnest but not ignoble fishermen and
artisans of Judea. If you contemplate them wisely, your astonishment
will deepen as you reflect that it was through and by such lowly and
zealous men as these, and not by philosophers and prelates and princes,
that the gospel of brotherly love was disseminated among mankind. It is
legitimate for an artist to invest an historic character with emblems
which bespeak the significance posterity has attached to him; but it
is wholesome to see him as he probably appeared to his contemporaries,
before subsequent generations have discovered a retroactive importance
in his career. Tintoret employed now one method and now the other,
and whosoever has been moved by the “Christ before Pilate” and “The
Crucifixion” of the School of San Rocco needs not to be told that
pathos and sublimity belong only to the former method.
Tintoret’s versatility would have made a lesser man renowned. He
counted it but an amusement, when the learned critics chided him for
not obeying academic rules, to imitate the style of Titian, or Paul
Veronese, or Schiavone, so that the critics themselves were deceived
and confounded. He invariably adapted his treatment to the requirements
of each work: if it was to be viewed from a considerable distance,
he painted broadly; if it was to be seen near, no one surpassed him
in the delicacy and carefulness of his finish. This sense of fitness
governed his composition as well as his drawing. In a picture intended
for a refectory, for instance, he introduced proportions in harmony
with the dimensions of that refectory, causing it to appear more
spacious and imposing. Where Tintoret’s figures are not correctly
drawn, the apparent fault was often intentional: restore the picture
to the position for which he designed it, and the drawing will no
longer offend; for he always took into account the distance and angle
from which the spectator would look, and he is not responsible for
the changes in location. In studying any picture, remember that there
is one, and only one, point of view where it can be seen as the
artist wished it to be seen. If you stand too far or too near, you
will miss his purpose. In a portrait by Titian or Tintoret, no line,
no dot of color is superfluous: you must adjust your vision until the
tiniest flake of white on the tip of the chin or on the pupils of the
eyes shows you its reason for being there. Try to imagine that last
perfecting touch away, and you will learn its value. For these men
did nothing haphazard: they would as soon have wasted diamonds and
rubies as their precious colors; every hair of their pencil was a nerve
through which their imagination transmitted itself to the canvas.
Although it be well-nigh impossible to describe a painting so that one
who has not seen it can derive profit from the description, I shall
attempt to point out a few of the characteristics of some of Tintoret’s
other works, in the hope of refreshing the memory of readers who are
already familiar with them, and of stimulating the interest of those
who may see them hereafter. It is the thought Tintoret has expressed,
and not the technique of his manner, to which I would call attention,
believing that this can be in some measure made real even to those who
cannot refer to the paintings themselves.
One fact impresses us immediately,--Tintoret’s originality. Previous
painters had used all the familiar Christian themes so often, that
there had grown up a conventional form of representing each; but,
although Tintoret used these themes, his treatment of them rarely
recalls that of any other painters, and always demands fresh study.
Giotto may be said to have fixed the norm which his successors
generally followed, diverging from it only in details. Tintoret
established a new norm. Moreover, he never copied himself; his
inexhaustible imagination refused to repeat. It represented the same
subject under different aspects, never twice alike. We have many
replicas of Raphael’s and Titian’s works, but none, so far as I know,
of Tintoret’s. In rare cases where two copies of a painting by him
exist, one is the sketch.
In one famous instance he is brought into direct comparison with his
rival, Titian. They both painted “The Presentation of the Virgin,”
in somewhat similar manner. Titian conceives the scene as follows:
In front of a stately pile of buildings, two flights of steps lead
up to the threshold of the Temple, where stands a venerable high
priest; near him are two other ecclesiastics and a youth. Spectators
look out from the windows and balconies of the adjoining edifice
upon Mary, a pretty little maiden, who has reached the first step of
the second staircase, and, looking up at the high priest, prepares
to finish the ascent. Immediately back of her figure is an ornate
Corinthian column. Her mother and a friend wait at the foot of the
staircase, and a goodly company of Venetian nobles is gathered near
them,--like pleasure-seekers taking a stroll, who stop for a moment to
witness a chance episode. An old woman with a basket of eggs sits in
the foreground. A colonnade and pyramid close in the picture on the
left,[16] and a pleasing view of mountains stretches out behind.
[16] I use _left_ and _right_ to denote the positions as the spectator
faces the picture.
This is Tintoret’s conception: A high priest, patriarchal in dignity,
stands at the top of a flight of steps leading to the door of the
Temple. Just below him Mary is mounting, her slight form and dress
being beautifully contrasted with the sky beyond. Behind her is a young
woman (probably her mother, Anne) carrying a young child. At the foot
of the steps, in the centre of the painting, another mother (one of
Tintoret’s matchless creations) is pointing toward Mary, and telling
her little daughter that she, too, will erelong be presented at the
Temple. Two girls recline on the steps near by. On the left, seven or
eight old men and idlers (such as one still sees at the approach to
churches in Italy, and to mosques and synagogues in the Orient) are
ranged along the stairs, indolently watching the scene. The shadow of
the building falls upon them, and prevents their figures from being too
prominent. There is no suggestion of Venice or Venetian nobles. The
attention is not distracted by costly apparel or imposing architecture,
but is fixed upon the chief actors,--upon the venerableness of the high
priest, the simplicity and confidingness of the little maiden, and the
magnificent forms and naturalness of the women.
Critics have disputed whether Titian’s picture or Tintoret’s be the
earlier. The presumption is in favor of the former,[17] but there is
no reason to cry plagiarism against either, because each master has
worked out a similar conception with characteristic independence. The
central idea--the youthful Virgin ascending the steps of the Temple
to be received by the high priest--may be seen in one of Giotto’s
frescoes.[18] What we admire is the originality of treatment in
both pictures. To me, Tintoret’s conception seems the more nobly
appropriate; and I know not in which of Titian’s works to look for a
counterpart of that woman in Tintoret’s foreground, so easy, so living,
so superb.
[17] Crowe and Cavalcaselle give 1539 as the date of Titian’s
“Presentation;” 1545-46 is usually assigned as the date of Tintoret’s.
[18] At the Arena, Padua.
As an example of Tintoret’s insight into the spiritual world, turn
to his picture of Lucifer.[19] From early Christian times, the Evil
One has been represented by very crude and vulgar symbols. A hideous
face, horns, a tail, and cloven hoofs have come to be his accepted
signs. Such a monster could never tempt even the frailest striver after
righteousness; for this conception illustrates the loathsomeness of
the _results_ of sin, and not the allurements by which sin entraps
us. It would be equally appropriate to show to a lover a crumbling
skeleton as the effigy of the woman whom he loves. The Devil would
make no converts if he announced himself to be the Devil, and dangled
before men’s eyes the despair, the degradation, the infinite remorse,
which are his actual merchandise, instead of the fleeting pleasures
and deceitful promises under which he masks them. He is no bungler or
fool, but supremely skilful in proportioning his enticement to the
strength of his victim, and very alert in choosing the moment most
favorable for attack. Goethe, in his Mephistopheles, has portrayed the
enemy of good under one of his aspects, emphasizing the cynical and
wicked rather than the seductive and plausible qualities. Tintoret has
depicted the latter. His Lucifer is still an angel, though fallen. He
has a commanding and beautiful form, and a countenance which at first
fascinates, until, on searching it more deeply, you fancy you discern a
suggestion of duplicity, a hint of sensuality, in it. Bright-hued and
strong are the plumes of his wings, and a circlet of jewels sparkles on
his left arm, the sole emblem of the wearer’s wealth. Here is indeed a
being whose beauty might seduce, whose guile might deceive,--one whose
presence dazzles and attracts, for it has majesty and grace and charm.
Here is a fit embodiment of that ambition which shrinks not from crime
in order to possess power; or of that false pleasure which decoys men
from duty, and, still flying beyond reach, leads its prisoner deeper
and deeper into the abominations of the abyss.
[19] At the School of San Rocco, Venice.
With equal originality and truth, Tintoret has illustrated the allegory
of the temptation of St. Anthony.[20] This subject is usually treated
either absurdly or grotesquely; as when the saint is discovered in a
grotto through which bats, mice, witches, and imps flit and gambol. Not
one of these ridiculous creatures, we may safely say, would frighten
or tempt anybody. But who are the enemies that a man whose life is
dedicated to holiness, and who has taken the three vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience, must resist? Tintoret’s picture gives the
answer. In it one of the figures, typifying Riches, offers gold and
precious gems. “Why live a beggar?” she pleads softly; “take these and
have power.” A second figure, Voluptuousness, is that of a woman fair
in body. “Come with me,” she urges; “let us taste of joy together while
there is still time.” A third, who (I think) represents Unbelief or
Heresy, has already dashed the saint’s missal and rosary to the ground,
has snatched up his scourge, and, endeavoring to drag him away, has
plucked off his mantle. “Come with me,” this tempter seems to say;
“there will be no more scourging, and fasting, and mortification; with
me your life shall be without care and unrestrained.” Nevertheless,
Anthony, thus hard beset, looks heavenward, uttering a prayer for
succor. Are not these apt personifications of those lower impulses to
which even men of high resolve have succumbed? All the witches of the
Brocken and all the bats in a Pharaoh’s tomb have nothing alluring
about them.
[20] In the church of San Trovaso, Venice.
There are few of Tintoret’s paintings which will not make similar
revelations, if you look attentively. Often what appears to be only
a casual accessory is the key to the whole composition. Let me cite
two instances of his imaginative use of color. The first occurs in
“The Martyrdom of St. Stephen.”[21] The saint has fallen on his knees
beneath the stoning of his persecutors, but there is no melodramatic
spurting of blood or sign of physical pain. His face betokens
fortitude, resignation, and forgiveness of his tormentors. He gazes up
steadfastly into heaven, and sees the glory of God, and Jesus standing
on the right hand of God. The Almighty is clothed in a robe of red and
a black mantle. In the background on earth, behind the martyr, a crowd
watch the persecution; they are too far away for us to distinguish
faces, but one of them, who is seated, is clothed in black and red.
It is Paul, soon to acknowledge Christ and put on the livery of God.
Again, in the “Paradise,” Tintoret gives profound significance to color
as a symbol: Moses, the witness to the Old Covenant, and Christ, the
witness to the New Covenant, have robes of similar colors.
[21] In the church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Mr. Ruskin was the
first to point out this stroke of genius.
The Doges’ Palace contains a score of Tintoret’s imaginative paintings
and many of his portraits, and there are few churches in Venice
which have not at least one altar-piece by him. His best portraits,
as I think, outrank even Titian’s best: they have a vital quality,
an _inevitableness_, which can be felt, but not described. What a
concourse of doges, senators, procurators, nobles, and soldiers he
has portrayed! Their grave, refined faces, their stately carriage, the
sobriety as often as the sumptuousness of their dress, bear witness to
the glory and power of Venice; that glory and power which had begun to
decline in the sixteenth century, though the Venetians perceived it
not. They misread the signs. They could not believe that Venice, which
had continually grown in wealth during ten centuries, could decline or
perish. _Esto perpetua!_--may she live forever!--was the last prayer of
her historian, Sarpi, the abiding dream of all her citizens.
It was Tintoret’s pride to immortalize on canvas her legends and her
history, and to illustrate her grandeur by means of allegory. He
painted the popular stories of the recovery of St. Mark’s body from
Alexandria, and of the miracles performed by that holy patron. He
painted the siege of Zara, the battle of Lepanto, and the ambassadors
of Venice holding head before the haughtiness of Frederick Babarossa.
He painted Venice enthroned among the gods, and Venice as mistress of
the sea.
But his genius was not confined to the expression of pomp and
patriotism. It delighted not only in majestic flights of imagination,
but also in contemplating and in setting forth pure beauty. In one of
the smaller rooms of the Ducal Palace are two classic subjects by
him,--“Mercury and the Graces,” “Ariadne and Bacchus,”--which, whether
we regard their perfect symmetry, or the grace of their forms, or
the delicious poetic spirit that emanates from them like fragrance
from a bed of lilies, have few rivals in loveliness. They arouse in
some beholders a mood akin to that which a joyous theme in one of
Beethoven’s symphonies can arouse,--a mood sweeter than hope itself, or
the brightest afterglow of memory; for, while it lasts, the present,
flooded with peace and beauty and a nameless ecstacy, satisfies the
soul.
The School of San Rocco possesses sixty-four pictures by Tintoret.
This series, illustrating the principal events in the Old and New
Testaments, is quite without parallel, not only in extent, but in
the excellence of a large number of the separate paintings. You pass
from one to another as from scene to scene in Shakespeare; and it is
only when you return to the works of lesser men that you realize the
richness and strength of the master, who has lifted you to his level so
easily that you were conscious of no effort. The halls in which these
paintings are kept are utterly inadequate for their proper examination:
not one can be seen in a favorable light; many are almost buried in
gloom, or hidden in the equally impenetrable glare that falls on their
surface from the cross-lights of conflicting windows. Some of the
canvases have been injured by water; the colors have grown dim or dingy
with age; and in some cases “restorers”[22] have blurred the outlines
and brought discord among the tones. Nevertheless, who that has once
seen can ever forget many of those paintings? The original conception
looms up beautiful and grand from amid the wreck of time and neglect,
like a mutilated, earth-stained Greek statue, and your imagination
exerts itself to see the work as it must have appeared when the colors
were fresh. Who can forget that flock of angels in “The Annunciation;”
or “The Visit of the Magi;” or “The Flight into Egypt;” or the terrible
“Slaughter of the Innocents,” which seems to have been painted in
blood, though there is hardly any blood to be seen; or “The Adoration
of the Shepherds;” or “Christ’s Agony in Gethsemane;” or “Christ before
Pilate;” or “Christ being led to Calvary”?
[22] One painting bears the inscription, REST. ANTONIVS FLORIAN, 1834.
“Exactly in proportion to a man’s idiocy,” Mr. Ruskin remarks, “is
always the size of the letters in which he writes his name on the
picture that he spoils.”
The series concludes with “The Crucifixion,” a masterpiece before
which artists and amateurs, and even academic critics, have stood
in mute wonder. It is a panoramic summary of the last acts in the
persecution of Christ. No detail which the Evangelists furnish has been
omitted, but all details have been subordinated to a unity so vast and
impressive that it eludes analysis. Primarily, this is a pictorial
representation of an historical event; but for the Christian believer
it is an image of the profoundest religious meaning. There are many
groups, but if you study each group you will discover that without it
something would have been wanting to the whole. Here are Romans, to
whom the spectacle has no moral interest; they are soldiers and judges,
executing unperturbed the Roman law upon the person of a Jew who has
stirred up the wrath of his fellows and caused a popular tumult. Here
are Jews, mocking and full of hate. Here, too, is the little remnant
of Jews who, believing in the victim as their master, are faithful to
him unto death. Is not the indifference or the idle curiosity of some
of the spectators as significant as the cruelty of his enemies and
the devotion and anguish of his friends? For consider well what it
implies that any human being should gaze unmoved, or moved only as by
an every-day occurrence, at a fellow creature suffering the penalty of
death. Is life, then, so cheap? Is a human soul of so slight account
that men can cast lots or jeer while it passes in agony from earth
forever? Who can estimate the cruelty which delights in the torments
of that struggle? And if this sacrifice be viewed with the eyes of a
Christian, and not of an impassive observer, if the victim be esteemed
not merely a man, but the Son of God, what words shall describe its
solemnity?
Tintoret has painted all this into his picture, in which the central
object is the cross with Christ upon it. His head has sunk upon his
bosom, and we imagine that with his downcast eyes he beholds the group
of holy women at the foot of the cross, and says to Mary, “Woman,
behold thy son.” That group is the most pathetic that painter ever
drew. Some of the women, overwhelmed by grief, have fainted. Not
by their faces, but by their drooping, motionless bodies, can you
infer the unspeakable burden which is crushing them. One kneels;
another--Magdalen, it may be--has risen, and looks up at the expiring
Saviour. A venerable disciple gazes tenderly at the face of the Virgin,
who has swooned. A younger disciple lifts his eyes toward Christ. They
cannot help; they cannot speak; they can only wait and sorrow. Who
shall utter the agony that love feels when it is powerless to relieve
the suffering of its beloved!
Behind this group stands a man holding a bowl, into which another man,
who has climbed a ladder resting against the back of the cross, dips a
sponge stuck on a spear. At the left, other executioners are raising
the cross on which one of the malefactors has been bound. Some men in
front are tugging at ropes; others behind are pushing or steadying it.
Hammers, adzes, a saw, and other tools bestrew the ground. Farther on
are many spectators,--a Roman officer in armor, elders, dignitaries,
and a soldier bearing the Roman standard. Some point toward Christ, and
evidently say to one another: “That is the impostor who calls himself
the Son of God and the King of the Jews. Where is his pretended might?”
A little in the background, a mounted spearman has thrown the reins
on the neck of his ass, which complacently feeds on withered palm
leaves,--an imaginative touch characteristic of Tintoret, which will
not be lost on those who recall Christ’s entry into Jerusalem a few
days before.
In the foreground, to the right, a man is digging a hole for the cross
of the second malefactor, while soldiers are drawing lots for Christ’s
garments, and other mounted soldiers are watching the proceedings near
by. A little beyond, another group is busy attaching that malefactor to
his cross; one boring a hole for the spike to pierce his hand, another
holding down his legs so that they can be bound, while a third has a
rope. In the distance, men hurry toward the scene, lest they be too
late to enjoy it; and the foremost camels of a caravan on its way into
the city appear just at a turn in the road. For traffic and the daily
toil of men are not interrupted by the crucifixion of Christ, though
soldiers and idlers have come out to witness it. On the left there is a
palace, and then hills succeeded by craggy mountains. The clouds have
deepened almost into darkness along the horizon. The sun, as it sinks
into this gloom, appears as a huge disk of ghastly light, and this disk
forms a dim halo behind Christ’s head. Yet a little while and the earth
shall be wholly darkened, and these curious, careless spectators shall
flee away in terror.[23]
[23] In a great picture, now ruined, at the abandoned Bavarian palace
of Schleissheim, near Munich, Tintoret has represented the Crucifixion
in its later aspect.
Such, told briefly and inadequately,--for language can only hint at the
effects of painting,--is this solemn event as conceived by Tintoret’s
imagination.[24]
[24] This is one of the four or five paintings which Tintoret signed.
It was finished in 1565. His receipt for its payment still exists. It
is dated March 9, 1566. The sum received was two hundred and fifty
ducats.
We have no evidence that Tintoret visited Rome, nor any record of
his journeys, except that to Mantua, yet we may be sure that he was
familiar with the scenery of the mainland. The woods and foliage,
the streams, valleys, and meadows, the little hills and picturesque
mountains, which abound in his paintings, he did not see at Venice. Our
lack of information leaves us in doubt, therefore, whether he studied
Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sixtine Chapel. If he never
went to Rome, he probably was acquainted, from engravings or copies,
with the composition of that extraordinary work; yet his own painting
of that subject bears so little resemblance to Michael Angelo’s that it
seems to have been produced independently.
The masterpiece of the Sixtine Chapel is so complicated that it
bewilders the student, until he observes that the principal groups
are roughly arranged in an immense irregular horseshoe, the points of
which are near the bottom of the lower wall, while Christ, the chief
figure, is inclosed in the upper oval. Four fifths of the action takes
place in the air, the lower portion alone of the fresco being occupied
by the river Styx and its adjacent bank. In its present nearly ruined
condition we cannot guess the original effect of this work; but I doubt
whether it could ever have satisfied the beholder’s instinctive demand
for harmony. The groups, even the individuals, seem isolated, not only
in space but in spirit. There is not, nor could there be, a single
prevailing passion. The only characteristic which applies to the whole
work is tremendous energy. Whatever of agony, of fury, of stubbornness,
of determination, can be expressed by the human body, is expressed
here. There is no muscle or tendon which is not exhibited in various
positions; no posture of limbs or trunk which is not represented. The
resurrection of the _body_ is illustrated in a hundred ways, and the
expression of the faces is of secondary importance. Here, patriarchs
have the vigor of Titans; saints are as robust as athletes; Christ
himself might be a majestically stern Apollo. Not without reason may
we call these effigies of restless, writhing human beings wonderful
diagrams of anatomy and concrete illustrations of dynamics. Even the
saved, who occupy the higher regions, are not tranquil. In striving to
comprehend these whirlwinds of action, the mind is wearied and baffled.
Unit by unit you examine this multitude, and you are amazed in turn by
sublimity, or horror, or power.
The space[25] to which Tintoret had to adapt his picture of “The Last
Judgment” is oblong, about fifty feet high and twenty feet broad.
In the upper part of the heavens Christ is represented, not in the
character of the inexorable Judge, but in that of the Shepherd who
welcomes his faithful flock to Paradise; for the resurrection and
judgment are coincident. On one side, near Christ, John the Baptist
is kneeling, and Mary and the repentant sinner, who bears a cross, are
near; on the other side are personifications of the cardinal virtues.
Extremely lovely is Charity, carrying in her arms two young children
to present to the Saviour. Zones of fleecy clouds separate the upper
part of the painting into sections, in which the saints are ranked;
but the distribution seems natural, not arbitrary, and serves to
prevent confusion among so many figures. Midway in the scene, angels
plunge earthward to rouse the dead. Michael, with his terrible sword
unsheathed, pursues the wicked toward a mighty river, which sweeps
irresistibly into the abyss. In the distance, on a low shelf of sand
amid the waters, is huddled a crowd of sinners, too indolent or too
terrified to struggle against the flood which must soon engulf them.
Crouching, they await their doom. In them Tintoret has perhaps typified
those miserable creatures whom Dante describes as “_a Dio spiacenti ed
a’ nemici sui_,”--hateful to God and to his enemies. Demons convoy a
bark-load of the damned through the hellish torrent. And on the shore
what a spectacle! Bodies starting from their graves, some not yet
clothed with flesh, some with leafy branches growing from their arms,
some striving to free themselves from the earth into which corruption
resolved them; everywhere signs of the suddenness and awfulness of that
supreme moment when the dead shall rise again in the forms they bore
when alive, and go to the eternal abode, of bliss or punishment, for
which each has fitted himself by his career on earth.
[25] In the church of Santa Maria dell’ Orto, Venice.
A parallel has frequently been drawn between the genius of Michael
Angelo and that of Dante, and many have deplored the loss of that
portfolio in which Michael Angelo is known to have made a series of
illustrations to _The Divine Comedy_. The resemblance between the
supreme Tuscan poet and the supreme Tuscan artist seems to me, however,
to hold only when we limit our view to Dante as the author of the
_Inferno_. In energy, in intense perception of evil, in unswerving
condemnation of sin, in austerity, in appreciation of the terror
of life, the poet and the painter were indeed akin. These are the
characteristics which most readers associate with Dante’s genius, for
the reason that most readers go no farther than the _Inferno_, or are
unable to comprehend the more spiritual sublimity of the _Purgatorio_
and the _Paradiso_. The _Inferno_ describes torments which the most
sluggish person can understand, and the contrasts of lurid flames and
impenetrable gloom by which the scenes in hell are diversified are so
vivid as to require no commentary. We marvel at the imagination that
could traverse unparalyzed these horrors and dare to report them. But
Dante’s genius stopped not here: it passed in review all human nature,
from its lowest sinful condition to that highest excellence when it
merges with God. Though Evil be a terrible reality, Dante saw that
Love is even more real, the source and the goal of all things, and he
proved his universality by his power to describe it. And they whose
imagination is strong enough to follow him through the regions of the
blessed incline to rank the third canticle of his “sacred poem” even
higher than the first.
Among painters, Tintoret only has, like Dante, swept through the full
circuit of human experience and aspiration. He has shown us the anguish
of the damned in his “Last Judgment,” and the peace and bliss of the
blessed in his “Paradise.” That “The Last Judgment” should be Michael
Angelo’s masterpiece, and that he should have painted it on the altar
wall of the Pope’s favorite chapel, are fatally appropriate. In that
terrific scene, the judge is not Christ, but Michael Angelo himself; a
righteous man, who looked out upon the iniquities of his time and dared
to condemn them; a religious man, who, coming to Rome, the religious
centre of Christendom, discovered there a second Sodom, in which pope,
cardinals, and bishops were the most shameless offenders; a patriotic
man, who had fought for the liberty of his beloved Florence, and had
beheld her, through the treachery of some and the apathy of others,
become the slave of a corrupt master. No wonder that the terror and
anguish, the depravity and hopelessness, of life should have eaten
into Michael Angelo’s soul. As he worked solitarily in the Sixtine
Chapel, no wonder that a vision of the retribution which shall overtake
the wicked should have possessed his imagination, and transformed
the artist into the judge. Day by day, a spirit mightier than theirs
painted the protest which Savonarola, Zwingli, Luther, and Calvin had
preached,--the spirit of a Job united to that of an Isaiah.
Not less appropriate was it that the genius of Tintoret and of
Venetian art should culminate in the representation of Paradise. Of
all commonwealths, Venice had enjoyed the longest prosperity; of all
peoples, hers had been the most sensitive to the joy of life. Even
at the end of the sixteenth century, when her power abroad had been
curtailed, and when luxury at home was slowly enervating the integrity
of her citizens, she was still outwardly imposing, magnificent. No
pope had ever succeeded, either by guile or by force, in ravishing
her independence. Her immemorial glory blazed across the past and
irradiated the present, as the setting sun spreads an avenue of
splendor upon the ocean and fills the heavens with golden and purple
light. Venice was indeed the abode of Joy; and Tintoret, at the close
of a long career, in which he had witnessed all the aspects and
pondered all the possibilities of human life, was filled, like Dante,
with hope, and felt Joy and Love to be the supreme realities, the
everlasting fulfilments, of mankind’s desires.
If the Last Judgment is an “unimaginable” theme, as Mr. Ruskin remarks,
how much more so is Paradise! Men have always found it easier to
represent grief than happiness, villainy than virtue, shadows than
sunshine; for the former are by their nature limited, and draw their
own outlines, while the latter have a quality of boundlessness which
to define abridges it. Moreover, pleasure is oftenest unconscious, and
always individual; pain, on the contrary, is too conscious of self, and
is manifest in attributes common to many. Nevertheless, Tintoret has
achieved the seeming impossibility of representing, so far as painting
may, the happiness, unmixed and eternal, of the celestial host.
His painting is known to most visitors at Venice as being the largest
in the world. The ordinary traveler, after reading the dimensions in
his guidebook, looks up at the canvas, and sees crowds of figures and
colors grown dark; wonders what it all means, and why the janitor does
not sweep down the dust and cobwebs; and then turns away to devote
equal attention to the black panel where Marino Faliero’s portrait
would be had he not died a traitor’s death. In like manner, I have
seen intelligent strangers exhaust the treasures of the Acropolis of
Athens in a quarter of an hour, and return to their hotel to read the
last English newspaper. But let him who would commune with one of the
few supreme masterpieces of art sit down patiently and reverently
before Tintoret’s “Paradise,” and he will be rewarded by revelations
proportioned to his study. As soon as his eyes grow used to the dimness
of the hall, the tones of the canvas begin to be intelligible to
him: it is as if he heard a symphony played in a lower key than the
composer intended; many of the original effects are lost, but harmony
interpenetrates and unifies all the parts. When he has adjusted his
eyes to this pitch, he can examine the figures separately; until,
little by little, in what seemed a vast confused multitude, he will be
aware of the presence of an all-controlling order; and he will gaze at
last understandingly, as in a vision, upon the congregations of heaven
as they are unfolded in Tintoret’s design.
Christ is seated in the central upper part of the painting: his left
hand rests on a crystal globe; innumerable rays of light illumine his
head and dart in all directions. Opposite to him is the Madonna, above
whom sparkles a circlet of stars. At Christ’s left soars the archangel
Michael bearing the heavenly scales; at Mary’s right is Gabriel with
a spray of lilies. A cloud of countless cherubs hovers at the feet of
the Divine Personage; while on each side of the archangels, curving
toward the upper extremities of the canvas, sweep companies of seraphim
and cherubim, and the thrones, principalities, and powers, and angels
with swords, sceptres, and globes. These form the first circle of the
angelic host, who from eternity have held their station nearest to
their Lord. Below them is a larger circle, composed of those spirits
who, by prophecy or preaching, established and extended the kingdom
of God on earth. On the left we see the forerunners of Christ,--David
playing the cithern, Moses holding up the tables of the law, Noah with
his ark, Solomon, Abraham, and the other patriarchs; and near these
we distinguish John the Baptist, who displays a scroll on which is
written _Ecce Agnus_. Midway in this circle are the Evangelists, the
four corners of the Christian temple, and the intermediaries between
the old and new dispensations. Here is Mark accompanied by his lion,
Luke and his ox, Matthew with pen in hand, and John with his book
resting on an eagle. As the line sweeps on, we see the early fathers,
doctors, and great popes,--Peter and Gregory; Paul, the apostle
militant, recognizable by his sword; Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine. In
the centre, between Luke and Matthew, is the third archangel, Raphael,
whose clasped hands and upturned face betoken a soul rapt in adoration.
The third and lowest circle is made up of many groups of martyrs and
holy men and women, the great body of the Church of Christ. Among the
throng on the left are Barbara; Catherine with her wheel; Francis
of Assisi and Dominick, the founders of the great religious orders;
Giustina bearing a palm branch; St. George (with banner), Lawrence,
Sebastian, Agnes, and Stephen, each recognizable by a familiar emblem.
In the centre, along the bottom of the painting, hover clusters of
worshiping angels; beyond them, more saints, Monica, and Magdalen; then
Rachel and a troop of lovely children, and Christopher, who carried
the boy Christ on his shoulder here below, and now carries a globe.
At last, on the extreme right, we reach the assembly of prelates and
theologians.
With this key to the general distribution, the student who has
Tintoret’s “Paradise” before him can recognize scores of other
figures. He will compare Tintoret’s portrayal of each saint, or
prophet, or martyr with conceptions other painters have drawn; and if
he reflect that any one of these groups, and many of these figures
singly, would have sufficed to establish the renown of an artist less
masterly than Tintoret, his astonishment will swell into admiration,
and this into awe, when he surveys the work as a whole. Who can
describe the effect of the innumerable multitude? Cast your eyes almost
anywhere upon the canvas, and lo! out of the deeper, distant spaces
angelic countenances loom up. Forms, though distinctly outlined, by
some magic seem diaphanous; and the farther your gaze penetrates, the
brighter is the light which radiates throughout heaven from the throne
of Christ. Still more marvelous is the sense of infinite tranquillity,
even in those figures which are moving. These are veritable spirits,
though they have human bodies, and they move or rest with equal ease.
In this heavenly ether there is no effort. Even those rushing seraphim,
whose majestic pinions seem to beat melody from air in their rhythmic
flight, suggest a certain grand repose begotten of motion itself,--a
repose akin to that produced by the sight of the sea, whose myriad
little waves dance and glisten, or of Niagara, whose falling flood
seems stationary. The spectator who has risen to this conception will
not fail to note the light of a joy, not vehement but profound, which
bathes every face; and how the action of every individual and of every
group is in some manner addressed to Christ, and would be incomplete
but for that divine centre. Christ and the Madonna, and the dove of
the Holy Spirit floating between them, he will look at first and turn
from last,--the noblest personification of ideal manhood and ideal
womanhood that ever painter expressed. The embodiment and essence of
_Love_, which is the author of all good, they are enthroned amid the
serenity of the highest heaven. Round them wheels the inner circle of
the archangels and the angels, the symbols of divine _Power_. Then,
in ever-widening circles, the saints and apostles and prophets, and
the elect of every clime and condition, all children of _Faith_ and
exemplars of _Charity_, float and revolve in bliss forevermore. And
it needs no strain of the imagination to hear the hosannas which the
morning stars sing together, and all the sons of God shout for joy.[26]
[26] In the execution of the “Paradise” he was assisted by his son
Domenico. If Tintoret was born in 1512, most of the work was done
after his eightieth year, an indication of physical vigor almost
unparalleled. A rapid study for another “Paradise,” in which the groups
are arranged on a different plan, reminding one of Dante’s description
of the Celestial Rose, is now in the Louvre.
* * * * *
The dark chapel of the Rucellai, in the church of Santa Maria Novella
in Florence, has a dingy altar-piece representing the Virgin and
the infant Christ. Cimabue painted it; and when it was finished the
Florentines made a holiday, and bore the picture through the streets,
amid great rejoicing, to the chapel where it now hangs. That stiff
and awkward Madonna, that doll-like Child, were hailed by them as the
highest achievement of painting. For us Cimabue’s masterpiece has only
an historic interest,--we find no charm in its Byzantine rigidness.
Yet that crude work was the seed of Italian painting, and if we follow
its growth during three centuries we shall be led to the “Paradise”
of Tintoret, in which are embodied all the excellences and advances
of the painter’s art. Between that humble beginning and that glorious
culmination an army of artists and myriads of paintings intervene. If
we look deep enough, we shall be conscious that they were all agents
whereby a mighty spirit was seeking to express itself to man,--a spirit
which first appealed to human piety through the symbols of religion,
and which, as its agents acquired skill and reach, bodied itself forth
in higher images and in conscious forms. The name of that spirit is
Beauty, never to be found perfect in the outer world, but known as
it communicates through the senses portents of itself which the soul
sublimes into that ideal unity by which the laws of nature and the
destiny of man are beheld in their highest aspect. True Worship, as in
the sweet piety of Fra Angelico, led to Beauty; to Beauty also, along
an inevitable path, led the pursuit of Truth by the sixteenth century
masters, latest among whom was Tintoret: for Beauty is the final seal
and test of both Holiness and Truth.