Book Description
The Venetian painter Jacopo Tintoretto (1518�694) is an ambiguous figure in the history of art. Critics and writers such as Vasari, Ruskin and Sartre all placed him in opposition to the established artistic practice of his time, noting that he had abandoned the values that typified the venerable Venetian Renaissance tradition, even being expelled as an apprentice from the workshop of Titian.

This generously illustrated book offers a long-overdue re-evaluation of Tintoretto. Tom Nichols charts the artist's life and work in the context of Venetian art and the culture of the Cinquecento. He shows how the artist created a new manner of painting, which for all its originality and sophistication made its first appeal to the shared emotions of the widest-possible viewing audience. The book deals extensively with Tintoretto's greatest works, including the paintings at the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice.



About the Author
Tom Nichols is a Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He has contributed to New Interpretations of Venetian Renaissance Painting (1994) and provided the entry on Tintoretto for Macmillan's The Dictionary of Art (1996).

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594) is an ambiguous figure in the history of art. His radically unorthodox paintings are not readily classifiable, and although he was Venetian by birth, his claim to be truly a member of the Venetian School has often been doubted. As a youth, he was rejected early on from the workshop of the great Titian, who was accepted then, as now, as the quintessential Venetian painter. In the long career that nonetheless followed, Tintoretto abandoned the humanist narratives and sensual colour values typical of Titian's work in favour of a renewed concentration on core Christian subjects. He painted these in a chiaroscuro-based style using a rough and abbreviated technique.