Entombment
Jacopo Tintoretto·1590
Historical Context
The Entombment at San Giorgio Maggiore, painted around 1590, depicts the burial of Christ in one of Tintoretto's late devotional works for Palladio's church. The painting demonstrates his mature approach to this fundamental Passion subject. Tintoretto's late Entombment subjects for San Giorgio Maggiore show his mature capacity for emotional depth, the tightly grouped mourning figures creating a concentrated image of grief and devotion. Jacopo Tintoretto spent his entire career in Venice producing an enormous body of work for the city's churches, confraternities, and state institutions. His synthesis of Titian's color with Michelangelesque figure power, achieved through an intense study method involving small wax models lit with dramatic sidelighting, produced a style of unprecedented dramatic intensity. His sustained productivity across five decades and his ability to maintain the highest quality of pictorial invention across the largest decorative programs in Venetian art make him one of the defining figures of the late Italian Renaissance.
Technical Analysis
The bearers lower Christ's body into the sepulchre in a composition of restrained pathos. Tintoretto's late luminous handling creates an atmosphere of solemn reverence.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice the bearers lowering Christ's body into the sepulchre in a composition of restrained, concentrated pathos.
- ◆Look at the luminous handling that creates an atmosphere of solemn reverence appropriate to late Tintoretto devotional art.
- ◆Observe the tightly grouped mourning figures creating a concentrated image of grief around the body.
- ◆The late San Giorgio Maggiore Entombment shows Tintoretto's mature capacity for emotional depth through simplified means.
- ◆Find Christ's body at the center — the weight and pallor of the dead flesh rendered with physical conviction.
