33 Facts About Tintoretto

Tintoretto was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school.

Tintoretto's work is characterised by his muscular figures, dramatic gestures and bold use of perspective, in the Mannerist style.

Tintoretto's father, Battista, was a dyer, or tintore; hence the son got the nickname of Tintoretto, "little dyer", or "dyer's boy".

Tintoretto is known to have had at least one sibling, a brother named Domenico, although an unreliable 17th-century account says his siblings numbered 22.

From this time forward the relationship between the two artists remained rancorous, despite Tintoretto's continued admiration for Titian.

Tintoretto sought no further teaching but studied on his own account with laborious zeal.

Tintoretto lived poorly, collecting casts, bas-reliefs, and prints, and practising with their aid.

At some time, possibly in the 1540s, Tintoretto acquired models of Michelangelo's Dawn, Day, Dusk and Night, which he studied in numerous drawings made from all angles.

The young painter Andrea Schiavone, four years Tintoretto's junior, was much in his company.

Tintoretto helped Schiavone at no charge with wall paintings, and in many subsequent instances, he worked for nothing, and thus succeeded in obtaining commissions.

In 1548 Tintoretto was commissioned to paint a large decoration for the Scuola di S Marco: the Miracle of the Slave.

Unwilling to be overshadowed by his new rival, Tintoretto approached the leaders of his neighbourhood church, the Madonna dell'Orto, with a proposal to paint for them two colossal canvases on a cost-only basis.

Tintoretto now intended to create a sensation by painting for the Madonna dell'Orto the two tallest canvases ever painted during the Renaissance.

Tintoretto settled down in a house near the church, looking over the Fondamenta de Mori, which is still standing.

Thereafter, Tintoretto habitually competed against rival painters by producing paintings quickly at a low cost.

About 1560, Tintoretto married his second wife, Faustina de Vescovi, daughter of a Venetian nobleman who was the guardian grande of the Scuola Grande di San Marco.

Between 1565 and 1567, and again from 1575 to 1588, Tintoretto produced a large number of paintings for the walls and ceilings of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.

Tintoretto next launched out into the painting of the entire scuola and of the adjacent church of San Rocco.

The crowning production of Tintoretto's life was the vast Paradise painted for the Doge's Palace, in size 9.1 by 22.6 metres, reputed to be the largest painting ever done upon canvas.

Tintoretto competed with several other artists for the prestigious commission.

Tintoretto set up his canvas in the Scuola della Misericordia and worked indefatigably at the task, making many alterations and doing various heads and costumes direct from life.

Tintoretto was asked to name his own price, but this he left to the authorities.

Tintoretto had very few pupils; his daughter, Marietta, his two sons, and Maerten de Vos of Antwerp were among them.

Tintoretto painted a multitude of works, many of them of a very large scale.

Tintoretto loved all the arts and as a youth played the lute and various instruments, some of them of his own invention, and designed theatrical costumes and properties.

Tintoretto was full of pleasant witty sayings, whether to great personages or to others, but he himself seldom smiled.

Tintoretto maintained friendships with many writers and publishers, including Pietro Aretino, who became an important early patron.

Tintoretto appears to have been a careful housekeeper and able to mollify her husband.

Tintoretto became highly regarded as a painter, having been trained as an artist by Tintoretto, as he would later with her half-brothers Domenico and Marco.

Tintoretto was buried in the church of the Madonna dell'Orto by the side of his favourite daughter Marietta, who had died in 1590 at the age of thirty.

Tintoretto's paintings emphasize the energy of human bodies in motion and often exploit extreme foreshortening and perspective effects to heighten the drama.

Tintoretto subverts the usual portrayal of the subject, in which Saint George slays the dragon and rescues the princess; here, the princess sits astride the dragon, holding a whip.

Tintoretto was Venice's most prolific painter of portraits during his career.