The body of saint Mark is taken away by the christians

The Body of Saint Mark Being Taken Away by Christians at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium depicts the legendary rescue of the evangelist's body from Alexandria. Tintoretto painted several dramatic scenes from the life of Venice's patron saint. The scene of Mark's body being rescued from the Alexandrian marketplace during a violent rainstorm is one of the most dramatically charged subjects in the entire San Marco cycle. 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.

The rescue scene creates a dynamic nocturnal composition of urgent movement. Tintoretto's dramatic lighting and energetic figure handling capture the clandestine operation's tense atmosphere.