07 September 2018

Venice.The young Tintoretto

From 7 September 2018 to 6 January 2019

With its 60 works, the show “Il giovane Tintoretto“, curated by Roberta Battaglia, Paola Marini, and Vittoria Romani, ranges over the first decade of the Venetian painter’s activity, from 1538, the year in which the independent activity of Jacopo Robusti in San Cassiano was first noted, to 1548, the date of the clamorous success of his first public-commissioned work, "Il miracolo dello schiavo", painted for the Scuola Grande di San Marco, and today the pride of the Gallerie dell’Accademia. It is an exciting itinerary that reconstructs the extraordinary period of stimuli and experimentation thanks to which Tintoretto deeply renewed Venetian painting, in a period of great changes.

Jacopo Tintoretto, Estate, 1546‑1548 circa. Washington, National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection 1961.9.90 .

The show brings together 26 exceptional paintings by Tintoretto, which both promote the works in the museum’s permanent collection, now seen in a new perspective, and shows them in the context of loans from the most important public and private institutions in the world: from the Louvre in Paris to the Washington National Gallery, the Prado museum in Madrid, the Uffizi in Florence, the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, the Fabbrica del Duomo in Milan, the Courtauld Gallery in London, and the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.

Jacopo Tintoretto, La contesa tra Apollo e Marsia, 1544 - prima del febbraio 1545.

Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, CT. The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund

Among the artist’s masterpieces, mention should be made of the “Conversione di San Paolo“ from the Washington National Gallery of Art, the “Contesa tra Apollo e Marsia“ from Hartford, now exhibited for the first time in Italy, the “Disputa di Gesù“ from the Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo in Milan, the “Cena in Emmaus“ from Budapest, and the mythical tales originally in Palazzo Pisani in Venice and now in the Gallerie Estensi in Modena.

Jacopo Tintoretto. Disputa di Gesù nel tempio, 1545‑1546- Milano, Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo © foto Malcangi

In chronological order, and divided into four sections, the itinerary investigates the still much debated period of Tintoretto’s training, not easily attributable to a particular workshop or person, by relating him to the Venetian artistic and cultural context of the 1530s and 1540s.

Jacopo Tintoretto. La conversione di san Paolo, 1539-1540 Washington, National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection 1961.9.43.

In this way there will be clarified how Jacopo Robusti acquired and transformed his models in order to develop a dramatic and revolutionary style, through hints derived from Titian, Pordenone, Bonifacio de’ Pitati, Paris Bordon, Francesco Salviati, Giorgio Vasari, and Jacopo Sansovino, all present in the show with significant works. Furthermore there will be exhibited paintings and sculptures by artists of Tintoretto’s generation who worked in the same milieu, among whom Andrea Schiavone, Giuseppe Porta Salviati, Lambert Sustrise, and Bartolomeo Ammannati.

The location of the exhibition: Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, September 7 2018 - January 6 2019. Opening hours Monday: 8.15 a.m. to 2 p.m. (ticket office closes at 1 p.m.); Tuesday-Sunday: 8.15 a.m. to 7.15 p.m. (ticket office closes at 6.15 p.m.). Closed on December 25 and January 1. Info: www.mostratintoretto.it

Edited by Nicolò Villa

Source, Photos: Press Office Civita Tre Venezie/Electa