Paradise

Tintoretto's Paradise (c. 1588) in the Doge's Palace is among the largest paintings on canvas in the world, an enormous vision of the heavenly court populating the Sala del Maggior Consiglio with hundreds of figures arranged in concentric circles around the enthroned Christ and Virgin. The commission replaced a damaged fresco by Guariento and was won by Tintoretto in competition with Veronese. The vast canvas, organized around concentric rings of saints and angels, demonstrates Tintoretto's ability to organize enormous multi-figure compositions with spatial clarity and spiritual authority. The work is the supreme statement of Venetian religious painting's ambition to make the invisible world of divine glory visible.

The enormous scale demanded bold, rapid execution, and Tintoretto's sweeping, spiraling composition of hundreds of celestial figures creates a cosmic vision achieved through his characteristically energetic brushwork.