Multo Robusto

Being raised Catholic, confession every once in a while is good for the soul. This one is about my years in art school. Yes, I did go, but it was more of a technical school that a college or university. I had spent the previous year crashing and burning my way through Penn State; art school was my determination to play out my own youthful insanity, paying my way through a very low cost but somewhat practical education in graphic arts.

York Academy of Art was not for learned students, closer to a truck driving school that anything academic. It didn't really matter; all higher education is what you make of it (or don't), art school exponentially more so. At York Academy, book learning wasn't in the curricula. In fact, in three years, two books were required, one slim volume on color theory, the other of your choice to base a three page hand written report about any artist you picked.

Not to brag, but I found this a remarkably low bar. To prove the point, I researched every book in the local York, PA, library on my subject, typing out a fifteen page report with three additional pages for my bibliography. My subject was a somewhat obscure Venetian Renaissance artist, Tintoretto. My teacher and all of my friends tried to discourage me from wasting time on this guy. Why not do Klimt or Chagall, someone trendy? Being a boneheaded Irishman, it was full steam ahead on my choice, damn the torpedoes.

Handing in my magnum opus to the teacher, virtually the only instructor in the school who seemed to have had any higher education, he glanced at it, then thumbed through it, only pausing to grunt at the bibliography. Returning to  the title page (not part of the page count, he had noted to the collective groans of the class), he scribbled "A+" on it before handing it back. It was in his hands for less that twenty seconds. I went from peacock proud to crestfallen, telling him so in no uncertain terms.

Looking at me with weary eyes, he pointed to the stack of handwritten reports still waiting. "Congratulations, Brian, you lapped the class. I, on the other hand, actually have to read all this shit. Look at it; written in crayon, third grade penmanship, Neanderthal prose. Besides, who wants to read about Tintoretto?"

I never forgave him for that final slight. Tintoretto was the greatest of the Venetian artist of his time, almost a contemporary of Michelangelo, a man of unlimited ambition with a gigantic sense of scale. He was put down, thwarted by his fellow artists, especially Titian, who realized where the greater talent lay. He dared to go bigger than Michelangelo, and he succeeded. Most especially, he was shockingly modern. Look at the self portrait above, the first of its kind, staring the audience down, paving the way for Rembrandt and all who followed.

Tintoretto was born around 1518, Jacopo Robusti, the son of a dyer, hence the nickname. By the age of twenty, he was standing on his own feet as an artist in the very competitive city of Venice. Titian was the big dog, at least thirty years his senior, already locking up all the big church and governmental projects. The two did not get along, Titian doing everything to block Tintoretto from getting any commissions of worth. It only made Jacopo work that much harder.

Vasari was the first guy to write about art and, more importantly, the lives of artists; it is from him that we have most of the known information about Leonardo, Michelangelo, and the rest. Vasari wasn't a fan of Tintoretto or any of the Venetian artist in general, although Titian became such a favorite of the Vatican that he had to get a good write up in the second edition. Tintoretto got nothing but backhanded compliments, such as, "... a great artist with unlimited talent. Too bad he never finished any of his paintings." These opinions trickle down still to this day.

That is why going to Venice last week, finding a city-wide celebration of MY painter, was beyond glorious. I saw at least 250 paintings in eight days by the guy, more than I had ever seen in all the books I could ever find in my previous life. It was both surreal and sublime to see them where they exist, huge spaces both religious and political. It gave context to Tintoretto's life, how he had to work to satisfy clerics and city leaders. Most especially, it shows how he rose to the top despite all the obstacles in his way.

Artists in the 1500s couldn't paint what they wanted; it was either portraits of the rich and famous, a specialty of Titian, or religious scenes, maybe mythological themes on occasion, or, especially in Venice, full of more power and money than anyplace not only in Italy but in all of Europe, weird combinations of politics and religion. Look at the painting above; Tintoretto is literally introducing some rich stiffs to Jesus and the saints, as if you can buy your way to heaven. Seeing all the gigantic churches in Venice, that was a common assumption back in those days.

These spaces needed art of a certain caliber and scale; Tintoretto made it his goal to provide those types of pieces to those locations. He was also always on time and on budget, a miracle among artistic types as much then as it is now. As much a graffiti artist like Banksy as a Renaissance guy, it made Tintoretto work fast and loose, sort of like the anti-Leonardo. The other artists in Venice hated his guts.

The most famous story, infamous actually, is when all the big artists in the area where asked to submit a sample of their work for a twenty year project, sketches to scale on the walls called cartoons. Given a couple of days to work on their little piece wall, Tintoretto got a piece of ceiling, the worse section to work. He didn't do a sketch; he simply finished a painting, complete with perspective so it looked like you were gazing straight into the heavens. When he gave the first painting to the place for free, he got the huge commission as well as the everlasting hate of the artistic community.

Tintoretto did the most massive paintings, not only in Venice but in all of Europe, still to this day. The Chiesa Madonna Dell' Orto was his home church, where his tomb lies. He gave them five story tall paintings for cost. They are awe-inspiring, but out of the way. I happened to be in town when they were showing tourists the way to get there, and I thank God for the opportunity. They are jaw dropping when seen at the location they were designed for.

Right about the time that Tintoretto established his presence in Venice with 'Miracle of the Slave', along comes Veronese, a very talented painter and all-around nice guy whose work was uniformly bright, cheerful, and colorful. Titian virtually adopted Veronese, lining him up enough work to keep the young artist afloat. Tintoretto, in typical fashion, reacted by telling every patron that he could paint just like Veronese, and proceeded to adjust his style when necessary. This did not help his reputation.

To work so fast and cover such huge spaces, up to forty yards tall or seventy yards wide, often with between 150 to 500 individual figures in the composition, Tintoretto found short cuts in painting, ways of cheating to make it look more finished than it actually was. He was the first Renaissance artist where you can see his brush strokes clearly, working directly against the grain of Italian artists. He had two basic styles, working from a white canvas for bright painting or working from very dark brown for his more personal pieces, almost like a black velvet painting. Up close, you can see him literally sketching in figures, using the minimum amount of paint and effort of achieve the desired result. Today, this looks incredibly modern. Notice the clothes below, drawn with single brush strokes.

The Renaissance was about Italy discovering that they lived on top of the ruins of greater civilizations, specially Roma and classical Greece, whose painting and sculpture were more realistic. The rich patrons paid for guys like Raphael, Leonardo and Michelangelo to copy and possibly exceed these ruins. They did, to their eternal credit, developing a sense of 'classical' beauty and composition, striving for harmony and balance in every painting. Tintoretto threw that right out the window.

The image above is all three-point perspective, forced perspective, and foreshortening. There is drama in the composition, not harmony. Nothing about the painting is at rest; everything makes you feel slightly uneasy, on edge. He doesn't need to put expressions on the people's faces; their body language tells the story. People loved it, even if the powers-that-be weren't always sure what to do with the guy. He was too dynamic for the times, literally popping off the canvas.

No fool, Tintoretto really knew his way around religious imagery. But there was always a twist, as in the above masterpiece. 150 figures in motion, seemingly in active agony. The only point of rest is the figure of Christ, nailed to the cross, at peace. You don't need to see the faces, the composition and the relationship of the bodies tell you everything needed. In modern language, show, don't tell.

There are over 500 Tintorettos still in Venice. Frankly, they were too big to be stolen by Napoleon or sold when the wealthy went broke. He managed to paint certain scenes, such as crucifixions and last suppers, a dozen different times in a dozen different places. Look at the one above, where the table explodes outwards in energy, everything at an angle, food being handed to strangers in the foreground. Nothing classical about that composition.

There could be a sense of humor as well; above is the famous 'Susanna and the Elders.' At first glance it seems like another take on classical feminine beauty, a naked woman emerging from water, finishing her bath. Keep looking and two old peeping toms emerge, ironically spoiling the classic image. The guy in the front is all bald head, looking a complete fool.

Here's a typical example of politics and religion melting together in the same image. The woman stares at her reflection in the shiny amour, the dragon's head emerging scandalously from between her legs. The other saint looks down, embarrassed. Again, the notion of classical beauty is simultaneously advanced and undermined at the same time. That is pure brilliance.

I really like the picture above, showing the feat at Canaan. Christ is there, technically at the center, but he's not the center of attention. Instead, there is a typical meal in Venice circa 1575. The serving girls in the foreground catch your attention more, or the figures against the wall, or the ones entering through the arches in the back. It is a religious painting, but it subverts the religious context by focusing on everyday life. The women of Venice are more important than the Savior.

A young painter growing up in Italy named El Greco before he moved to Spain a few years later loved the work of Tintoretto. The above image is not an El Greco, but it might as well be one. He borrowed the loose structure, the tall sinewy figure, the bright colors against the dark background. El Greco was a sensation in Spain, not overrun with Renaissance artist yet, the beginning of Modernism in art. He took all of it, lock stock and barrel, from Tintoretto.

The best revenge was that Tintoretto outlived both Titian and Veronese, finishing their commissions in some cases. Time would eventually catch up with him as well, but not before he had a massive studio which included both a son and daughter, both painters of note. In the work above, his final last supper, note again the importance of the servants in the front. Also look at how translucently he painting the angels flying in above, single brush strokes of white against the dark ceiling. The entire composition is tranquil yet in constant motion.

When Tintoretto died in 1594, he was the accepted master painter of Venice. To this day, he remains, to the Venetians, the master painter of Venice. The Titian and Veronese works have been looted, spread around the world. His stuff was too large to move, too rooted in the location. It was an honor to see his paintings. It was the real reason, not disguised from my wife, of why I went there in the first place. They exceeded my expectations beyond calculations. Thank you, Jacopo Robusti, or should I say Robusto!