They did not copy his designs, but the beauty of his pictures made
them look at the world with his romantic eyes and paint in his dreamy
mood. It was almost as though Giorgione had absorbed the romance of
Venice into his pictures, so that for a time no Venetian painter could
express Venetian romance except in Giorgione's way.
But in 1518, eight years after Giorgione's death, another great
innovating master was born at Venice, Tintoret by name, who in his
turn opened new visions of the world to the artists of his day. While
painting in the rest of Italy was becoming mannered and sentimental,
lacking in power and originality, Tintoret in Venice was creating
masterpieces with a very fury of invention and a corresponding
swiftness of hand. He was his own chief teacher. Outside his studio
he wrote upon a sign to inform or attract pupils--'The design of
Michelangelo and the colouring of Titian.' Profound study of the works
of these two masters is manifest in his own. Like Michelangelo he worked
passionately rather than with the sober competence of Titian. His
thronging visions, his multitudinous and often vast canvases are a
surpassing record.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111