framed it upon the thought of Dante's mystic rose. The circles and
many of the figures can be traced in the poem, and the idea of the
Eternal Light streaming through the leaves of the rose dominates the
composition. It is appropriate that it should have been his last great
work, as it was also the greatest attempt at composition ever made by a
master of the Venetian School.

There is no room here to study Tintoretto as a painter of battlepieces,
though from the time he painted the "Battle of Lepanto," for the Council
of Ten, he often returned to such subjects. His two series for the
Gonzaga included several, and the Ducal Palace still possesses examples.
The impetuosity of his style stood him in good stead, and he never fails
to bring in graceful and striking figures.

His portraits are hardly equal to Titian's intellectual grasp or
fine-grained colour, but they are extraordinarily characteristic. He
prefers to paint men rather than women, and he painted hundreds--all the
great persons of his time who lived in and visited Venice. The Venetian
portrait by this time was expected to be more than a likeness and more
than a problem. It was to please the taste as a picture, to interest and
to satisfy criticism. Tintoretto, like Lotto, gets behind the scenes,
and we see some mood, some aspect of the sitter that he hardly expected
to show. His penetration is not equal to Lotto's, but he deals with his
sitters with an observation which pierces below the surface.

In criticising Tintoretto, men seem often unable to discriminate between
the turgid and melodramatic, and the spontaneous and temperamental. The
first all must abhor, but the last is sincere and deserves to be
respected. It is by his best that we must judge a man, and taking his
best and undoubtedly authentic work, no one has left a larger amount
which will stand the test of criticism. As an exponent of lofty and
elevated central ideas, which unify all parts of his composition,
Tintoretto stands with the greatest imaginative minds. The intellectual
side of life was exemplified in Florentine art, but the Renaissance
would have been a one-sided development if there had not arisen a body
of men to whom emotion and the gift of sensuous apprehension seemed of
supreme value, and at the very last there arose with him one who, to
their philosophy of feeling and the mastery of their chosen medium,
added the crowning glory of the imaginative idea.

PRINCIPAL WORKS

Augsb