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Tag Archives: Venetian

Picture Books of the Past: Jacopo Robusti, called Il Tintoretto

Enjoy this series of segments highlighting Picture Books of the Past: Reading Old Master Paintings, a loan exhibition of 60+ works from the M&G collection. The exhibit has traveled to The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. and the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida.

In October’s Closer Look we explored Marietta Robusti’s Allegory of Wisdom. In this video we’ll look at a work by her father who trained her. (Following your video viewing click HERE to access the additional information provided on the exhibition’s text panels.)

Picture Books of the Past: Marietta Robusti

Enjoy this series of segments highlighting Picture Books of the Past: Reading Old Master Paintings, a loan exhibition of 60+ works from the M&G collection. The exhibit has traveled to The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. and the Orlando Museum of Art in Florida.

Marietta Robusti’s Allegory of Wisdom is replete with both Christian and mythological symbols. (Following your video viewing click HERE to access the additional information provided on the exhibition’s text panels.)

Whatsoever Things Are… Just: The Last Supper

The supper is the last intimate meal Christ will have with his disciples, and Cernotto beautifully captures the familiarity of the scene.

 

 

Visit HERE for the next video to consider what is Just, referencing Christ’s sacrifice.

Whatsoever Things Are… Honorable: The Good Samaritan

While the lives of real people are incredibly inspiring, so are stories with a poignant purpose, like this well-known parable.

 

Visit HERE for the next video to consider what is Just.

Jacopo Robusti (called Il Tintoretto): The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon

Following Titian’s death in 1576, Tintoretto became the leading artist in Venice.

Object of the Month: August 2021

A Philosopher Holding a Book

Oil on canvas

Giambattista Tiepolo

Venetian, 1696–1770

One of the latest Italian painters represented in the Museum & Gallery Collection is the greatest artist of 18th-century Venice, Giambattista Tiepolo. While Tiepolo achieved most of his fame through breathtakingly airy frescoes on the ceilings of palaces, churches, and villas, he also revived age-old themes from the Bible and antiquity through fresh interpretations. Such is the case with a series of bust-length portraits of bearded old men, begun perhaps as early as the 1740s. These men in oriental garb are widely regarded as a series of ancient philosophers, but no definite case may be made for the group since most lack traditional attributes. Tiepolo was certainly influenced by Rembrandt’s paintings of bearded old men which may also be perceived as simple character studies.

The present painting is the original treatment by Tiepolo that together with others from the series was later copied by his artist sons, Domenico and Lorenzo, in etchings called La Raccolta de Teste (The Collection of Heads). The vigorous brushwork, vibrant colors, elaborate dress, and penetrating gaze of the sitter combine to make M&G’s Philosopher Holding a Book an excellent example of Tiepolo’s lesser-known skills at small-scale work. The etching to the left is made by Giovanni’s son as a copy of his father’s work. These smaller versions usually omit the hands, but the cloak clasp is included.

One of the virtues of art that John Keats extols in his poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is the ability of art to ask questions of the viewer. Sometimes these questions are answerable; sometimes they aren’t. But the mystery is what draws viewers to return, allowing them to absorb more of the work as well as more of the mystery.

So, what is it that makes this seemingly straightforward portrait of a man with a book so interesting and intriguing?

  • Size: The work is small, unlike most of Tiepolo’s painting, which adorns ceilings and walls of various significant buildings in Venice and elsewhere. This focused work is part of no grand scheme or storyline. The work is part of a larger collection, also unusual for the artist. While artists often had studios of apprentices, Tiepolo’s own sons copied these works as etchings, collecting them into a published book—a practice which, presumably, expanded the audience of viewers and increased greater demand for similar works. This painting is called a portrait; yet, in one sense it is not, for the emphasis is not on the sitter. This man is not a historical figure who wishes to be known to posterity; he is merely an anonymous model given a role to play as a philosopher with a book.
  • Subject: Is he really a philosopher? Which philosopher is he? In the collection of twenty “heads,” only two have been identified as actual philosophers: Diogenes and Pythagoras. It has been suggested that M&G’s may be Xenophon, a Greek historian and philosopher. It has also been suggested that these “philosophers” are merely studies in physiognomy, a so-called science of identifying the character of a person through an examination of facial structure or attributes such as the set of eyes or wrinkles. Such a science was familiar to Tiepolo whose sketches illustrated a manual on the topic.
  • Details: What or who are on the clasps and brooches so prevalent in the collection? Tiepolo used the motif on the clasps in other works not a part of this collection—Two Men in Oriental Costume (a large wall decoration) and the more elaborate scenes of the Scherzi di Fantasia. The cameo-like ornament adorns the turbans as well as the cloaks. Are they meant to identify the philosophers? Or simply beautiful Oriental embellishments?

All of these questions can be frustrating to art historians and viewers alike. But Keats would propose that they are an indication of good art, something beautiful that attracts further examination, pondering, and appreciation without final satisfaction. Good art pulls us out of ourselves and reminds us, like Horatio, that “there are more things in heaven and earth. . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Doubtless, this philosopher with a book would have agreed.

Dr. Karen Rowe Jones, M&G board member

Citation: Print, Portrait of a Man, Plate 6, from the series Raccolta Di Teste I; Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Italian, 1727 – 1804); Italy; etching on white laid paper; 1931-67-106-2

 

Published 2021

Object of the Month: June 2021

The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon

Oil on Canvas

Jacopo Robusti, called Il Tintoretto

Venetian, 1519-1594

Allegory of Wisdom

Oil on Canvas

Marietta Robusti, called La Tintoretta

Venetian, c. 1554- c.1590

 

Jacopo Robusti, better known by his nickname, Il Tintoretto, was one of the most sought after and prolific painters in sixteenth-century Venice. He never lacked for commissions throughout his life and produced some of the city’s most famous canvases. The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon from the Museum & Gallery collection is one of his early works.

Jacopo’s success was in part due to his bustling family workshop which included two of his sons and Marietta his daughter, painter of M&G’s Allegory of Wisdom. In an article on Marietta, Louise Arizzoli points out that “Our reading of Renaissance masters as individual geniuses that started with Vasari’s Lives, sheds a negative light on those collaborators who remained in the shadow of the leading artist. These family workshops have however to be understood as teamwork, in which every member had specific responsibilities in order to ensure the quality of the commissions. Therefore, it is particularly difficult for us now to recognize individualities, as it was not the aim of the workshop to enhance individual style but to produce a certain style—that of Tintoretto” [Italics added]. This is one reason that apart from a small number of religious paintings and the Self-Portrait above (now in the Uffizi) few works are definitively assigned to Marietta. In addition, her talents were a close match to her father’s. This is especially evident in the figural details and similarities of brushwork and coloration in the two M&G works showcased.

These mysteries of attribution are not only on-going but truly fascinating.  For example, many scholars believe that several of Marietta’s works may simply have been incorporated into her father’s oeuvre.  For example, Old Man and a Boy (Kunsthistorisches Museum) was considered one of Jacopo’s best portraits, but in 1920 Duncan Bull, a curator at the Rijksmuseum, reassigned the attribution to Marietta on the basis of the ‘M’ signature discovered on the work. (The ‘M’ is in the lower right of canvas beside the chair arm.) However, there are still scholars reluctant to accept this re-attribution.

Two other important biographers detailing Tintoretto’s (and by extension Marietta’s) career are Raffaele Borghini (1537-1588) and Carlo Ridolfi (1594-1658). Both writers note that Marietta was not only exceptionally talented but also her father’s favorite. In his Le Maraviglie dell’Arte Ridolfi writes:

Marietta Tintoretto, then, lived in Venice, the daughter of the famous Tintoretto and the dearest delight of his soul. He trained her in design and color, whence later she painted such works that men were amazed by her lively talent. Being small of stature she dressed like a boy. Her father took her with him wherever he went and everyone thought she was a lad. She made a portrait of Jacopo Strada, the antiquarian of Emperor Maximilian, who presented it to his majesty as a rare work, whence the emperor, charmed by her valor, made enquiries about her of her father. Philip II, the King of Spain, and Archduke Ferdinand also asked him about her. However, Tintoretto was satisfied to see her married to Mario [Marco] Augusta, a jeweler, so that she might always be nearby, rather than be deprived of her, even though she might be favored by princes, as he loved her tenderly […] When she died her father wept bitterly, taking it as the loss of a part of his own inner being.

Marietta died four years before her father around 1590. The exact cause of her death is uncertain, but many believe she died in childbirth. Regardless, Ridolfi’s account of the close personal and professional relationship between the two would blur “into the myth of a young and talented woman painter who died too soon, leaving her father heart-broken.” We do know that Jacopo’s output began to fall off after his daughter’s death—whether because of grief or because of the loss of collaborative talent cannot be known. In any case, she would eventually become a muse for 19th century painters. Léon Cogniet’s Tintoretto Painting his Dead Daughter is perhaps the most famous among these Romantic paintings.

 

Donnalynn Hess, Director of Education

 

Published in 2021

Christ the Redeemer: Paris Bordone

Paris Bordone studied for a time under Titian, the greatest Venetian artist of the 16th century. Although forced to leave this great master’s studio, Bordone went on to excel in portraiture, large-scale architectural settings, and cabinet paintings.

Jacopo Robusti, called Il Tintoretto

The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon

Jacopo Robusti, called Il Tintoretto

Below the image, click play to listen.

Stefano Cernotto (attr. to): The Last Supper

The Last Supper was a common subject among 16th-century artists; however, the intriguing iconography in Stefano Cernotto’s rendering displays an inventiveness that is unique.

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