Tintoretto – the great Italian artist of the XVI century, author of numerous paintings of the historical genre, one of the greatest representatives of the Venetian school of painting. His real name is Jacopo Robusti, and the outstanding genius of art received the nickname Tintoretto (from Italian – “little dyer”) as a child by the profession of his father – a dyer of fabrics.

Tintoretto is primarily famous for paintings on religious themes, but he also created works of battle, portrait and mythological genres. Many of the artist’s works combine features of the late Renaissance and early Mannerist art.

Biography

Tintoretto was born in 1518 or 1519 in Venice, he was the eldest child in a large artisan family. The exact date of birth of the great master is unknown; no original documents have been preserved in this regard.

From childhood, the boy showed interest in drawing, and his father was sympathetic to his son’s hobby. In 1533, the parents of the young Jacopo sent him to study with Tiziano, but Tintoretto spent only 10 days in the workshop of the great Venetian. For some unknown reason, Titian did not want to study with the new student and he had to retire.

History has not preserved any other information about Tintoretto’s training in painting. Whether he was a brilliant self-taught person or whether he managed to get a full-fledged education is unknown. But already in 1539, the future genius professionally painted the facades of buildings in his native Venice, and soon began to create paintings. Unfortunately, the works of the initial period of creativity have not survived to this day.

The first success came to Tintoretto in 1548.

His painting “The Miracle of St. Mark”, written for the church fraternity, caused lively controversy among the townspeople and aroused interest in the work of the young artist. From that moment on, Tintoretto had regular customers, mainly representatives of the church and members of religious brotherhoods. For them, the artist painted pictures on the popular themes of the Old and New Testaments.

In addition, Tintoretto devoted a lot of effort to creating wall paintings for Venetian churches. From time to time he received orders to paint portraits of city nobles and works of the mythological genre.

In the 50s of the 16th century, the artist married Faustina de Vescovi and lived with her for the rest of his life. Tintoretto did not like to travel and almost never left the borders of Venice, with the exception of two trips to Rome and Mantua. Over the years, the artist became the head of a large family, he had 8 children, two of whom (son Domenico and daughter Marietta) helped his father from childhood and later also became painters.

Tintoretto, according to contemporaries, led a modest life and never sought to get rich.

There is a lot of evidence that the artist often painted paintings for a minimal fee. He received great moral pleasure from his work, but did not know how to use his talent to make money.

In 1576, Titian died, and the locals recognized Tintoretto as the best painter of Venice. The great painter continued to work diligently in his studio until his death. He left this world forever on May 31, 1594 and was buried with honors in his hometown.