Jacomo Robusti, nicknamed "Tintoretto" in reference to his father's trade as a dyer, stands as one of the major figures of 16th-century painting. He remained in Venice all his life, where his ambition found fertile ground: it was in this city of strong artistic influence that his exceptionally long career unfolded. Although his training remains poorly known, he asserted himself from the late 1540s with prestigious commissions such as the Miracle of the Slave (1548). With the support of a large workshop, he dominated, in the second half of the century, the market for major decorative cycles intended for the city's institutions, such as the Doge's Palace (the fresco of Paradise, from 1588) or the Scuola Grande di San Rocco (from 1564 to 1588).
Revealing the full modernity of his art, the exhibition highlights the singularity of an artist endowed with incredible creative energy, whom Vasari saw as the "most terrible spirit painting has ever known" (1568). A complex and unclassifiable artist, Tintoretto developed a body of work as admired as it is debated, characterized by bold compositions, dizzying perspectives, spectacular light effects and the vivacity of his brushwork – the famous prestezza. By creating an original synthesis between the sculptural drawing (disegno) of the Tuscan masters, in particular that of Michelangelo, who fascinated him, and the Venetian colorito of Titian, his rival, he brought the Renaissance in Venice to its peak.
Gathering some forty paintings and graphic works from public and private collections, French, Italian and international, the exhibition offers a thematic route that allows one to grasp the diversity and scope of Tintoretto's work around several axes. The large religious compositions, such as the Miracle of Saint Augustine (1547-1549, Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza) or the Trinity (c. 1561-1562, Galleria Sabauda, Turin), for example, demonstrate his capacity to renew sacred subjects through a dramatic interpretation.