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312 VENETIAN INDEX.
1. The Crucifixion, by Tintoret; on the wall of the left-
hand aisle, just before turning into the transept. A picture
fifteen feet long by eleven or twelve high. I do not believe that either the "Miracle of St. Mark," or the great
"Crucifixion" in the Scuola di San Rocco, cost Tintoret more
pains than this comparatively small work, which is now utterly
neglected, covered with filth and cobwebs, and fearfully injured. As a piece of color, and light and shade, it is altogether marvellous. Of all the fifty figures which the picture
contains, there is not one which in any way injures or contends with another; nay, there is not a single fold of garment
or touch of the pencil which could be spared; every virtue of
Tintoret, as a painter, is there in its highest degree,—color at
once the most intense and the most delicate, the utmost
decision in the arrangement of masses of light, and yet half
tones and modulations of endless variety; and all executed
with a magnificence of handling which no words are energetic enough to describe. I have hardly ever seen a pictu^
in which there was so much decision, and so little impetuosity,
and in which so little was conceded to haste, to accident, or
to weakness. It is too infinite a work to be describable; but
among its minor passages of extreme beauty, should especially
be noticed the manner in which the accumulated forms of the
human body, which fill the picture from end to end, are prevented from being felt heavy, by the grace and elasticity of
two or three sprays of leafage which spring from a broken
root in the foreground, and rise conspicuous in shadow against
an interstice filled by the pale blue, grey, and golden light in
which the distant crowd is invested, the office of this foliage
being, in an artistical point of view, correspondent to that of
the trees set by the sculptors of the Ducal Palace on its
angles. But they have a far more important meaning in the
picture than any artistical one. If the spectator will look
carefully at the root which I have called broken, he will find that
in reality, it is not broken, but cut; the other branches of the
young tree having lately been cut away. When we remember
that one of the principal incidents in great San Rocco Crucifixion is the ass feeding on withered palm leaves, we shall he
at no loss to understand the great painter's purpose in lifting
| Title | The stones of Venice - 3 |
| Creator | Ruskin, John |
| Publisher | J. Wiley |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Date | 1889 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000344 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | 312 VENETIAN INDEX. 1. The Crucifixion, by Tintoret; on the wall of the left- hand aisle, just before turning into the transept. A picture fifteen feet long by eleven or twelve high. I do not believe that either the "Miracle of St. Mark," or the great "Crucifixion" in the Scuola di San Rocco, cost Tintoret more pains than this comparatively small work, which is now utterly neglected, covered with filth and cobwebs, and fearfully injured. As a piece of color, and light and shade, it is altogether marvellous. Of all the fifty figures which the picture contains, there is not one which in any way injures or contends with another; nay, there is not a single fold of garment or touch of the pencil which could be spared; every virtue of Tintoret, as a painter, is there in its highest degree,—color at once the most intense and the most delicate, the utmost decision in the arrangement of masses of light, and yet half tones and modulations of endless variety; and all executed with a magnificence of handling which no words are energetic enough to describe. I have hardly ever seen a pictu^ in which there was so much decision, and so little impetuosity, and in which so little was conceded to haste, to accident, or to weakness. It is too infinite a work to be describable; but among its minor passages of extreme beauty, should especially be noticed the manner in which the accumulated forms of the human body, which fill the picture from end to end, are prevented from being felt heavy, by the grace and elasticity of two or three sprays of leafage which spring from a broken root in the foreground, and rise conspicuous in shadow against an interstice filled by the pale blue, grey, and golden light in which the distant crowd is invested, the office of this foliage being, in an artistical point of view, correspondent to that of the trees set by the sculptors of the Ducal Palace on its angles. But they have a far more important meaning in the picture than any artistical one. If the spectator will look carefully at the root which I have called broken, he will find that in reality, it is not broken, but cut; the other branches of the young tree having lately been cut away. When we remember that one of the principal incidents in great San Rocco Crucifixion is the ass feeding on withered palm leaves, we shall he at no loss to understand the great painter's purpose in lifting |
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