Tintoretto (review)

The extraordinary exhibition devoted to Tintoretto at the Prado, beautifully curated by Miguel Falomir, has been widely reviewed and justly praised as among the most important of recent years. Falomir is also responsible for editing the catalog, here under review, doing so with exemplary rigor and vision. He contributes essays explaining the rationale for the show and the catalog, on Tintoretto's portraiture, and on Tintoretto and Spain — especially important for the light it sheds on the vexed questions of El Greco and especially Velásquez's responses to Italian art. Falomir is ably assisted by Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, who write fine essays on Tintoretto's development and career as a painter (Echols), and as a painter of religious narrative (Ilchman). Echols and Ilchman are also Falomir's collaborators on the catalog entries, divided into sections, each prefaced by a short essay: Echols: "Beginnings until 1546," and "The Decisive Years 1547–1555"; Ilchman: "The Major Pictorial Cycles 1555–1575"; Falomir: "The Final Years 1575–1594"; and Ilchman with Edward Saywell on drawings, entitled "Michelangelo and Tintoretto: Disegno and Drawing." Sylvia Ferino Pagden and Robert Wald contribute joint entries on three paintings lent from Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum: the portrait of Lorenzo Soranzo, the spectacular Susannah and the Elders, and the dubious Saint Jerome. Eike Schmidt adds two entries, supplementing the section on Tintoretto's drawings, cataloguing statuettes after Michelangelo's Crepuscolo (by Tribolo) and Samson and Two Philistines (by an anonymous artist). Finally, Jill Dunkerton and Roland Krischel contribute use-ful essays respectively devoted to "Tintoretto's Painting Technique" and to "Tintoretto and the Sister Arts" (which considers not only sculpture and architecture but also prints, tapestry, and mosaic). The book concludes with a documentary summary, including contemporary literary references, prepared by Linda Borean.

Great care has been taken to avoid one of the major pitfalls into which such collaborative efforts too often stumble, which is the assertion by different authors of conflicting interpretations and opinions on such matters as dating, the extent of workshop intervention (a central issue in Tintoretto studies), or in iconographical readings. This greatly enhances the usefulness of the catalog as what we might call the vade mecum, or prolegomenon, for a new, comprehensive, and greatly needed monographic study. For obvious reasons, such pivotal and major works as the paintings for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco ("the Sistine Chapel of Venetian painting" in Falomir's words), the Scuola Grande di San Marco, or the immense Last Judgment and Making of the Golden Calf for the Madonna dell'Orto could not be lent to the exhibition. It is certainly true, as Falomir acknowledges, that only in Venice itself might the ideally perfect exhibition of Tintoretto be mounted, and even so, "certainly no exhibition can replace a tour of Venice." The lack of such paintings, however, was amply compensated for in the exhibition by the exceptional holdings of the Prado itself (including the wonderful series of Old Testament beauties purchased for Philip IV by Velásquez on his second trip to Venice, as well as the Rape of Helen, and the Washing of the Feet for the Scuola del Sacramento at San Marcuola); by paintings from other Spanish collections (the oil sketch for Paradiso in the Ducal Palace in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum); and by judiciously chosen loans from other museums (Mars and Venus from Munich, Saint George and the Dragon, and Origin of the Milky Way, both from London). Nevertheless, acknowledging the truth of Johannes Wilde's observation that essential features of Tintoretto's religious paintings are often incomprehensible outside the architectural settings that in many cases determined their form, Falomir and his associates have reintegrated into the catalog and amply illustrated the major commissions and essential turning points in Tintoretto's development that could not be placed in evidence in the exhibition itself. The result is an uncommonly reliable, and readable, narrative account of the painter's art and career.

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