The years of apprenticeship Tintoretto was born in
Venice in 1518. His father, Battista, was a dyer – in Italian and in
Venetian; 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. The family was believed to have originated from
Brescia, in Lombardy, then part of the
Republic of Venice. Older studies gave the Tuscan town of
Lucca as the origin of the family. Little is known of Tintoretto's childhood or training. According to his early biographers
Carlo Ridolfi (1642) and
Marco Boschini (1660), his only formal apprenticeship was in the studio of
Titian, who angrily dismissed him after only a few days—either out of jealousy of so promising a student (in Ridolfi's account) or because of a personality clash (in Boschini's version). From this time forward the relationship between the two artists remained rancorous, despite Tintoretto's continued admiration for Titian. For his part, Titian actively disparaged Tintoretto, as did his adherents. Tintoretto sought no further teaching but studied on his own account with laborious zeal. According to Ridolfi, he gained some experience by working alongside artisans who decorated furniture with paintings of mythological scenes, and studied anatomy by drawing live models and dissecting cadavers. He 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 and his workshop studied in numerous drawings made from all angles on
blue paper. Now and afterward he very frequently worked by night as well as by day. His noble conception of art and his high personal ambition were both evidenced in the inscription which he placed over his studio
Il disegno di Michelangelo ed il colorito di Tiziano ("Michelangelo's drawing and Titian's colour").
Early works '' (1544–1545),
National Museum,
Poznań 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 also worked for nothing, and thus succeeded in obtaining commissions. The two earliest mural paintings of Tintoretto—done, like others, for next to no pay—are said to have been ''Belshazzar's Feast
and a Cavalry Fight''. These have both long since perished, as have all his frescoes, early or later. The first work of his to attract some considerable notice was a portrait group of himself and his brother—the latter playing the guitar—with a nocturnal effect; this has also been lost. It was followed by some historical subject, which Titian was candid enough to praise. One of Tintoretto's early pictures still extant is in the church of the
Carmine in Venice, the
Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (); also in S. Benedetto are the
Annunciation and
Christ with the Woman of Samaria. For the Scuola della Trinità (the scuole or schools of Venice were confraternities, more in the nature of charitable foundations than of educational institutions) he painted four subjects from
Genesis. Two of these, now in the
Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, are
Adam and Eve and the
Death of Abel, both noble works of high mastery, which indicate that Tintoretto was by this time a consummate painter—one of the few who have attained to the highest eminence in the absence of any recorded formal training. Until 2012,
The Embarkation of St Helena in the Holy Land was attributed to Schiavone. But a new analysis of the work has revealed it as one of a series of three paintings by Tintoretto, depicting the legend of
St Helena and the Holy Cross. The error was uncovered during work on a project to catalogue continental European oil paintings in the United Kingdom.
The Embarkation of St Helena was acquired by the
Victoria and Albert Museum in 1865. Its sister paintings,
The Discovery of the True Cross and
St Helen Testing the True Cross, are held in galleries in the United States. Tintoretto's conception of the narrative is distinguished by a marked theatricality, unusual colour choices, and vigorous execution. The painting was a triumphant success, despite some detractors. Tintoretto's friend
Pietro Aretino praised the work, calling particular attention to the figure of the slave, but warned Tintoretto against hasty execution. Around 1555 he painted the
Assumption of the Virgin, an oil-on-canvas painting for the church of
Santa Maria dei Crociferi. In 1551,
Paolo Veronese arrived in Venice and quickly began receiving the prestigious commissions that Tintoretto coveted. 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. He had already painted the
Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (), one of his major works, for the church; it repeats a subject that had earlier been painted by Titian, but in place of Titian's classically balanced composition is a startling visual drama of figures arranged on a receding staircase. Tintoretto now intended to create a sensation by painting for the Madonna dell'Orto the two tallest canvases ever painted during the Renaissance. He settled down in a house near the church, looking over the Fondamenta de Mori, which is still standing. Depicting the
Worship of the Golden Calf and the
Last Judgment, the tall paintings (both –1560) were widely admired, and Tintoretto gained a reputation for his ability to complete the most massive projects on a limited budget. Thereafter, Tintoretto habitually competed against rival painters by producing paintings quickly at a low cost. In about 1564, Tintoretto painted three additional works for Scuola di S. Marco: the
Finding of the body of St Mark, the ''
St Mark's Body Brought to Venice, and St Mark Rescuing a Saracen from Shipwreck''. 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. The subterfuge by which he won the commission has been called "the most notorious incident of Tintoretto's career". In 1564, four finalists—Tintoretto,
Federico Zuccaro,
Giuseppe Salviati, and Paolo Veronese — were invited by the Scuola to submit
modelli for a ceiling painting on the subject of
Saint Roch in Glory to decorate the hall called the Sala dell'Albergo. Instead of a sketch, Tintoretto produced a full-sized painting, secretly installed it on the ceiling, and presented it as a
fait accompli on the day of the competition. Tintoretto then announced that he was offering the painting as a gift — perhaps conscious that a bylaw of the foundation prohibited the rejection of any gift. Tintoretto next launched out into the painting of the entire scuola and of the adjacent church of
San Rocco. In November 1577, he offered to execute the works at the rate of 100 ducats per annum, with three pictures being due each year. This proposal was accepted and was punctually fulfilled, the painter's death alone preventing the execution of some of the ceiling subjects. The whole sum paid for the scuola throughout was 2,447 ducats. Disregarding some minor performances, the scuola and church contain fifty-two memorable paintings, which may be described as vast suggestive sketches, with the mastery, but not the deliberate precision, of finished pictures, and adapted for being looked at in a dusky half-light.
Adam and Eve, the
Visitation, the
Adoration of the Magi, the
Massacre of the Innocents, the
Agony in the Garden,
Christ before Pilate,
Christ carrying His Cross and (this alone having been marred by restoration) the
Assumption of the Virgin are leading examples in the scuola; in the church,
Christ Curing the Paralytic. It was probably in 1560, the year in which he began working in the Scuola di S. Rocco, that Tintoretto commenced his numerous paintings in the
Doge's Palace; he then executed there a portrait of the Doge,
Girolamo Priuli. Other works (destroyed by a fire in the palace in 1577) succeeded—the
Excommunication of Frederick Barbarossa by Pope Alexander III and the
Victory of Lepanto. After the fire, Tintoretto started afresh,
Paolo Veronese being his colleague. In the Sala dell'Anticollegio, Tintoretto painted four masterpieces —
Bacchus, with Ariadne crowned by Venus, the
Three Graces and Mercury,
Minerva discarding Mars, and the
Forge of Vulcan, which were painted for fifty ducats each, excluding materials, c. 1578; in the hall of the
senate,
Venice, Queen of the Sea (1581–1584); in the hall of the college, the
Espousal of St Catherine to Jesus (1581–1584); in the Antichiesetta,
Saint George, Saint Louis, and the Princess, and
St Jerome and St Andrew; in the hall of the great council, nine large compositions, chiefly battle-pieces (1581–1584); in the Sala dello Scrutinio the
Capture of Zara from the Hungarians in 1346 amid a Hurricane of Missiles (1584–1587).
Paradise '' The crowning production of Tintoretto's life was the vast
Paradise painted for the Doge's Palace, in size , reputed to be the largest painting ever done upon canvas. While the commission for this huge work was yet pending and unassigned Tintoretto was wont to tell the senators that he had prayed to God that he might be commissioned for it, so that paradise itself might perchance be his recompense after death. Tintoretto competed with several other artists for the prestigious commission. A large sketch of the composition he submitted in 1577 is now in the
Louvre, Paris. In 1583, he painted a second sketch with a different composition, which is in the
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid. The commission was given jointly to
Paolo Veronese and
Francesco Bassano, but Veronese died in 1588 before starting the work, and the commission was reassigned to Tintoretto. He set up his canvas in the
Scuola vecchia della Misericordia and worked indefatigably at the task, making many alterations and doing various heads and costumes direct from life. When the painting had been nearly completed he took it to its proper place, where it was completed largely by assistants, his son
Domenico foremost among them. All Venice applauded the finished work; Ridolfi wrote that "it seemed to everyone that heavenly beatitude had been disclosed to mortal eyes." Modern art historians have been less enthusiastic and have generally considered the
Paradise inferior in execution to the two sketches. It has suffered from neglect, but little from restoration. Tintoretto was asked to name his own price, but this he left to the authorities. They tendered a handsome amount; he is said to have abated something from it, an incident perhaps more telling of his lack of greed than earlier cases where he worked for nothing at all. == Pupils ==