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Lot und seine Töchter
Jacopo Tintoretto·1543
Historical Context
Lot und seine Töchter (Lot and His Daughters) was a subject that occupied several of Tintoretto's contemporaries—including Simon Vouet and Orazio Gentileschi—for its combination of the dramatic narrative of Sodom's destruction with the transgressive intimacy of the daughters' scheme to preserve their bloodline by seducing their father. In Venice, the Old Testament narrative gave painters an opportunity to explore the partially clothed female figure within a dramatic historical setting that lent moral gravity to what might otherwise appear as an erotic subject. Tintoretto brings his characteristic urgency to the scene, the distant fires of Sodom providing a literal and symbolic backdrop to the intimate foreground action.
Technical Analysis
The composition contrasts the intimate foreground group—Lot and his daughters in close physical proximity—with the distant apocalyptic landscape of burning Sodom. Tintoretto renders the female figures with his characteristic emphatic illumination against a dark background, the skin tones glowing with an almost phosphorescent warmth. The looser, more atmospheric handling of the distant flames provides tonal contrast with the more carefully worked foreground figures.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the figures of Lot and his daughters in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of Sodom.
- ◆Look at the characteristic palette and brushwork that Tintoretto employs for Old Testament narrative subjects.
- ◆Observe how the composition handles the morally complex subject — survival and transgression depicted without explicit condemnation.
- ◆The dramatic setting of the scene — flight from a destroyed city — provides the context for the moral complexity of the story.
- ◆Find where the burning city of Sodom provides dramatic background illumination for the foreground figures.
