(playing piano) Steven: Tintoretto is quickly becoming
one of my favorite Venetian artists. Beth: Me too, his works
are amazing in person. We're looking at a large
painting by Tintoretto called the Miracle of the Slave. Steven: It's a painting that is
full of energy, full of color. Beth: Full of dramatic
action, it's a great story. This was painted for the
Scuola Grande di San Marco. This was a major confraternity
or a kind of club in Venice and they commissioned author
pieces, they commissioned paintings, and they were very active in charity
and the civic life of Venice. Steven: And in this case, they
commisioned the young artist Tintoretto to create a series of four canvases. This was meant to hang
directly opposite the altar. Beth: In the home of their confraternity. Steven: That's right, so
this was not a church, this was really more of
a civic organization. Nevertheless, this is a painting that is
absolutely tied to the city of Venice, whose patron saint is St. Mark. Beth: And here we have St.
Mark performing a miracle. Steven: So let's tell the story. St. Mark is long dead. A man wants to visit Venice specifically
to visit the basilica of San Marco where the relic that is the
body of St. Mark resides, but his master says no. He goes anyway. And when he's there he devotes his
entire body, his soul, to St. Mark. He returns and as punishment the master
orders that he have his eyes gouged out. Beth: The master says, "Not
even St. Mark can save you now." Steven: But the servant responds,
"I have given my body to St. Mark. "I am not afraid." But the instruments break. Beth: Not satisfied with
this as a miracle, the master
then orders that the slave have his legs cut off. Steven: But the ax also breaks. Beth: As a last resort, the master says,
"Well now we're going to take a hammer "to your mouth so that you
can't call on St. Mark anymore." Steven: And then the hammer is broken. Beth: At that point everyone
is convinced of the miracle and visits the relic of St.
Mark in San Marco in Venice. Steven: That's right, he repents
his sins and all is forgiven. We see at the very top of the painting,
St. Mark whose body is this tour de force, foreshortened figure that flies down. His head radiating his spiritual power,
who lowers his hand in a kind of healing, protective gesture. Beth: And below him, foreshortened in
the opposite direction with his head toward us, is the slave himself. Steven: Now surrounding the slave
are the instruments of torture that have been broken or that are
still being used to brutalize him. Beth: The entire crowd on the
left is reacting to this miracle that they're witnessing but
no one looks up at St. Mark. St. Mark is a spiritual figure
that perhaps they can't see but that we are privileged to see. Steven: Those figures that
crowd around are so varied and this is one of those
typical 16th century conventions where you have this sort of wonderful
confusion of different types. You have nobles that are dressed
as contemporary Venetians. You have military figures, exotic
figures that have come from the east. Beth: And all of this implies that this
miracle has universal significance, not a significance just for the slave
or just for Venice but for the world. So just like the foreshortened
saint and the foreshortened figure of the slave structure the composition,
we also see Tintoretto using color to organize and structure the composition. Steven: Well that's right. If we start at the top again we see
the red of the costume of St. Mark and we see that repeated in the
turban just directly below him, but we see it especially in three
figures on the edges of the painting. Of the master of the
house on the upper right, of one of these marvelous lounging
figures on the lower right, which actually reminds us of Michelangelo, perhaps of the Ignudi
in the Sistine Chapel, and then all the way on the upper
left, the observer who is perched rather precariously at the
base of one of the columns. Beth: And similarly we see
a punctuated use of gold. First in that billowing
drapery around St. Mark. Then on the lower left of the mother
holding a child who's careening her neck to watch the
miracle that's happening. Then in the brocade of the turbaned
figure and then in the figure wielding an ax leaning
over the body of the slave, and finally on the drapery of the lord
who's ordering all of this punishment. Steven: So there is this very
self-conscious understanding of the relation of color and
Tintoretto has used them to create a kind of pattern to create a kind
of rhythm throughout this painting. Beth: And yet, it is a
difficult painting to read. When we look at a painting
of a subject like this we might expect something
much more legible, where the action, the
drama is more unified. Where we have one moment of time
that we can easily recognize. But here Tintoretto, and this makes
sense for the mid 16th century, for the moment of mannerism, he's rejecting that legibility
of the high Renaissance. Steven: So there's this
emphasis on both line and color, which had been such a topic of
conversation at this historical moment, and because there is this hyper
attention to both color and line the forms that they
define almost get lost. Beth: So this was painted when
Tintoretto is just about 30 years old. It's a tour de force by a young
artist and apparently a critic at the time commended this
achievement, but also said, "Look, you've got to be careful. "It's evident that your
brushwork is rapid. "You've got to slow down, you've
got to draw more carefully." And you really can see this
bravura brushwork in this painting. Steven: The critic was suggesting
that this was a little too unfinished. That it felt as if there
was too much energy, that the velocity of the artist's
own brush moving across that surface was too evident. But of course this is
now something we value. Beth: And that criticism suggests
that this is not a painting that is carefully thought
up but it so clearly is. We talked about the way
that the color is unified, the very careful way that
the narrative is told. We can see that he's using linear
perspective with a vanishing point up at the halo of St. Mark. So this is clearly carefully
constructed and that loose brushwork, that open brushwork, is
something that Tintoretto valued. Steven: And as that critic
was looking at this painting, so we can see the man who
commissioned it looking in, clearly not part of the pictorial space. In a funny way, very
much closer to our space but witnessing what's
taking place just as we do. (piano playing)