Tintoretto and Veronese inspired one another in 16th-century Italy. These Venetian artists are coming face to face on 18 October 2016, when two of their paintings are included in Dorotheum’s sale of Old Masters.
The Republic of Venice experienced an artistic golden age during the 16th-century, from the 1520s onwards. Some of its greatest and most celebrated artists include Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto, who was born in Venice around 1518.
The wealth of the city state facilitated artistic commissions during this period and created competition amongst prominent artists such as Paolo Caliari, called Veronese, born in Verona in 1528. He moved to Venice in the 1550s, where he soon received a large number of commissions from churches and the Doge’s Palace, thereby competing with Tintoretto. Veronese was apparently a protégé of Titian, a longtime rival of Tintoretto.
These three painters were to compete for over 30 years, and after Titian’s death in 1576 the other two would continue their mutual confrontation for another dozen years. They were rivals but also influenced and inspired one another. For each artist, the others’ work was a stimulus that demanded a response.
Artistic competitiveness was not merely a Venetian phenomenon, as it was already to be found a few decades earlier in Rome, Florence and other major cities. In the case of Venice, however, it did not lead to aesthetic degradation but to an emulation and profusion of ideas. Commissions from private sources, churches, institutions, and foreign clients poured in.
Christ in Gloria
oil on canvas laid down on panel, 42 x 30 cm
price realised € 149.922
Find more Old Master paintings in the online catalogue!
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Old master paintings auction
Tuesday, 18 October 2016, 5 pm
Palais Dorotheum Vienna
image above:
Jacopo Tintoretto (1519–1594)
The Battle between the Philistines and the Israelites
oil on canvas, 146 x 230.7 cm
price realised € 907.500
