The Greatest

The New Criterion's James Panero is writing a piece for the Wall Street Journal about the Venetian painter Tintoretto. I'm going to watch for it because of this:

Here I make the argument that in his monumental "Crucifixion" of 1565, located in Venice's Scuola di San Rocco, Tintoretto may just have painted the single best work of religious art in the Italian Renaissance.

I love this stuff and I could be easily convinced that he's right about that picture. You can get an idea of what it looks like here (Panero's link doesn't work) ; pick English, "Scuola Grande", "Virtual Tour" and "Sala dell' Albergo". As for Tintoretto himself:

Tintoretto was a genius and far surpassed his teacher, Titian, who was also a genius but was also an arrogant bastard--and jealous of Tintoretto, sending him home because he demonstrated a threatening talent. From what I know of him, Tintoretto was one of those down-to-earth geniuses like Johann Sebastian Bach who raised a family, loved his country, sincerely worshipped God, and created amazing things without resorting to the sturm and drang of "romantic" prodigies (e.g. the Mozart of Amadeus).

Next time you're going through a museum, and you see that name, stop and take a nice long look and think about that face--the face of a fairly normal dude who did amazing things. They never named a Ninja Turtle after him, but I think he'd be okay with that.

MORE HIGHBROW FANCY PANTS BLOGGING: For me, even more striking than Tintoretto's Crucifixion is his large Last Supper, complete with Raiders-style spirits wafting around the dark upper room's rafters. There's a definite sense of foreboding and uncertainty here--everyone knows something's up, and that this isn't just an ordinary meal. It's quite a contrast with Leonardo's famous, though poorly preserved version that has everything laid out with sharp Classical detail. (A style I think was almost parodied by Veronese's take on the Last Supper--which was so irreverent that got him hauled before the Inquisition in 1573. He had to retitle the painting, too, and change the setting to a different Biblical feast. Jackass.)

Good views of both the Tintoretto and Veronese Last Suppers are here.

Note that Tintoretto, while reverent, wasn't without humor. Look in the foreground. In a monumental, career-crowning picture of one of the most dramatic, serious moments in Christianity, there's a cat standing up and eating grapes out of the kettle.