In the scene in the Scuola di S. Rocco the betrayal is the
dominating incident, and in San Stefano all is peace, and the Saviour
is alone with the faithful disciples.
[Illustration: _Tintoretto._
BACCHUS AND ARIADNE.
_Ducal Palace, Venice._
(_Photo, Anderson._)]
Though several of the large compositions ascribed to Tintoretto in
the Ducal Palace are only partly by him, or entirely by followers and
imitators, its halls are still a storehouse of his genius. There is much
that is fine about the great state pieces. In the "Marriage of St.
Catherine," the saint, in silken gown and long transparent veil, is an
exquisite figure. Tintoretto bathes all his pageantry in golden light
and air, and yet we feel that these huge official subjects, with the
prosaic old Doges introduced in incongruous company, neither stimulated
his imagination nor satisfied his taste. It is on the smaller canvases
that he finds inspiration. He never painted anything more lovely, more
perfect in design, or more gay and tender in idea, than the cycle in
the Ante-Collegio. The glowing light and exquisitely graded shadows upon
ivory limbs have a sensuous perfection and a refined, unselfconscious
joy such as is felt in hardly any other work, except the painter's own
"Milky Way" in the National Gallery. In all these four pictures the
feeling for design, a branch of art in which Tintoretto was past master,
is fully displayed. In the Bacchus and Ariadne all the principal lines,
the eyes and gestures, converge upon the tiny ring which is the symbol
of union between the goddess and her lover, between the queenly city and
the Adriatic sea. Or take "Pallas driving away Mars": see how the mass
into which the figures are gathered on the left adds strength to the
thrust of the goddess's arm, and what steadiness is given by that short
straight lance of hers, coming in among all the yielding curves. The
whole four are linked together in meaning: the call to Venice to reign
over the seas, her triumphant peace, with Wisdom guiding her council,
and her warriors forging arms in case of need. In conjunction with these
pictures are two small ones in the chapel, hardly less beautiful--St.
George with St. Margaret, and SS. Andrew and Jerome. It is difficult to
say whether the exultant St. George, the dignified young bishop, or the
two older saints are the more sympathetic creations, or the more
admirable, both in drawing and colour. The sense of space in both
settings is an added charm, and every scrap of detail, the leafy
boughs, the cross and crozier, is important to the composition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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