Timeless Tintoretto

Let us admit it: we were sceptical about the possibility of organising an exhibition devoted to Tintoretto, an artist who worked on immense surfaces, in a museum whose exhibition rooms are probably the smallest in Paris. How could the painter of Paradise, an absolute masterpiece covering no less than 187 sq. m (slightly more than Michelangelo’s Last Judgement), fit within the confines of the Musée Jacquemart-André?
The surprise is not that this should be possible (one can always find small paintings by almost any artist), but that it nevertheless allows us to appreciate Tintoretto’s monumental art. This is no small achievement and deserves recognition, especially since the selection of works also makes clear his importance.

Although he was somewhat neglected in the last century in favour of Titian and Veronese, those days are now over. We have counted at least three exhibitions devoted to him since the founding of La Tribune de l’Art [1], testimony to a spectacular revival of interest that has now, quite rightly, placed him at least on an equal footing with the other two great sixteenth-century Venetian painters. His heightened Mannerism, which lends his paintings a distinctly "modern" strangeness found elsewhere only in Titian’s late work, undoubtedly helps to explain this development.
The first room of the exhibition dispels any doubts that the project might have raised, notably with two large canvases from Italian museums: The Miracle of Saint Augustine from Vicenza (ill. 1) and The Creation of the Animals from the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice (ill. 2). Here we find his swirling compositions, elongated figures and acidic colours. Admittedly, all these features are characteristic of Mannerist…