The.Economist.2007-02-10 (966424), страница 47
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Constitutionby Larry GonickClick to buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.ukCopyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipJacopo TintorettoA tribute well earnedFeb 8th 2007 | MADRIDFrom The Economist print editionThe master of the Venetian Renaissance finally gets a show he deservesJACOPO TINTORETTO, one of the great masters of Venetian Renaissance painting, has been neglected bycritics, curators and gallery-goers for decades. Visitors to Venice often return with their heads full of thesplendours of his religious paintings in the Scuola di San Rocco, one of the wonders in the history of art.But, once back home, there is little to sustain their interest.
The last major exhibition devoted solely toTintoretto was 70 years ago—and that was in Venice.Museo Nacional del PradoIf I were a rich manA calculated effort to restore Tintoretto's reputation has begun at the Museo Nacional del Prado inMadrid, where an ambitious exhibition of his work was opened recently by the king of Spain and thepresident of Italy.
The intention is to reinstate Tintoretto alongside celebrated figures in whose shadowhe has languished, such as Titian and Giorgione. Critics sometimes jeer at the phenomenon ofblockbuster exhibitions of Old Masters and ageing Impressionists, but Miguel Falomir, the chief curator ofthe Prado exhibition, declares that Tintoretto not only deserves a show, he requires it.To mount an exhibition outside Venice is an act of courage because Tintoretto is the most Venetian of hisgreat contemporaries. He was born there, and his work appeared in no fewer than 53 Venetian churches,palaces and religious fraternities known as scuole.
The vast majority of it still hangs there and much ofthe best of it is too big or too integral to a building to be moved. When the Prado proposed collaboratingwith other national galleries, as is common now among museums, they were told that other curatorsthought it was impossible and declined to join in. (Mr Falomir prefers not to name the faint-hearted.)Tintoretto was a bold painter with a huge and variable output. Best of all are large religious narratives,crowded with sculptured figures painted with astonishing energy in dramatic colours emphasised bychiaroscuro, or light and shade.
There are sound reasons for holding a show of his work in Madrid.Velazquez was an admirer and bought Tintorettos for the king of Spain when he visited Venice in 1650.Six exquisite roof panels and a fine portrait from that purchase are to be seen now in Madrid. The Pradoprovides ten of the show's 65 works, though it has others in its collection that Mr Falomir did not considergood enough.The exhibition, which is hung in the Prado's long central gallery—it measures 112 metres (367 feet)—begins with a self-portrait of the artist in his late 20s. He shows himself in three-quarter profile, withmoustache, beard and carefully combed sideburns, but the most striking feature is the big, brown eyesstaring right back at the viewer.
It is the face of an assertive, single-minded man.He was born in 1518, when Titian was in his early 30s. An early anecdote suggests that he was briefly astudent of Titian's before the master expelled him from the studio—out of envy for his precocious talent,so the story goes, and, since Titian was not a generous master, it could be true.
Tintoretto cannot havebeen entirely self-taught but he developed personal techniques that set him apart. For example, he builtmodels and shone light through their windows, to study the way it fell; and he suspended models from aceiling so that he could draw them in flight. A flying man was a significant figure in “Miracle of the Slave”,the painting that established his fame in 1548—and the painting that Mr Falomir lusted after more thanany other.
At four metres by five and a half, it is too big to be transported from Venice.Some of the finest religious narratives have travelled, however. There are two Last Suppers. One issombre with classical allegories; the other (pictured below), from the church of San Trovaso, is Tintorettoon incomparable form, placing biblical stories in the domestic surroundings of 16th-century Venice.
Thesupper is of bread rolls on a crumpled cloth, and, as Christ reveals Judas's betrayal, one disciple knocksover his wicker chair while reaching for the flask of wine. There is a red darned patch on the white sockof another disciple, and a pile of coats, bags and a book on a stool. No mythology, no piety—just adramatic story.Mr Falomir chose the best of Tintoretto from the best galleries in Europe and North America: there is aluminous “Susanna and the Elders” from Vienna, and “The Origins of the Milky Way” from London,painted more directly in the style of Titian when Tintoretto was trying to win overseas commissions afterthe great man's death. There are portraits too, though none as interesting as the self-portraits. Theexhibition ends with the artist in 1588 when he was 70, six years before his death.
His hair is grey; hischeeks and eyes sunken; his look faintly melancholic, but unapologetic—a man who says you must takehim as you find him.The Prado's Tintoretto exhibition is a significant symbol of its transformation from an academic institutionwith a brilliant permanent collection into a national museum competing with other great galleries forshows of celebrated painters. Later this year, new exhibition space is to be opened. It seems thatSpanish politicians look kindly on the regime of the director, Miguel Zugaza Miranda, who, unlike hispredecessors, recently survived a change of government.The Tintoretto exhibition sits confidently in the environment in which art and tourism mingle.
But has MrFalomir achieved his aim and restored Tintoretto's reputation? He has dusted it off, patched and cleanedit where necessary. As the curator himself admits: “No exhibition can replace a tour of Venice.” But thisrich and rewarding show endorses Tintoretto's greatness, and that is what the curator intended.“Tintoretto” is at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, until May 13thCopyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group.
All rights reserved.About sponsorshipDavid RattrayFeb 8th 2007From The Economist print editionDavid Rattray, master-storyteller of the Zulu war, died on January 26th, aged 48Jane Flanagan picsGet article backgroundON JANUARY 22nd 1879, Private Samuel Wassall nearly met his maker at the Buffalo river. He was deepin that whirlpool of drowning men and horses, forcing his own mount across, when he heard a gurglingbehind him. It came from Thomas Westwood, a private in the same Staffordshire regiment.
Westwoodwas going under. Without hesitation Wassall swam his horse back, tied it up on the Zulu-held bank of theriver, got Westwood to safety, crossed again to get his horse and—as Zulu assegais whistled into thewater on every side of him—made it back himself to the Natal side. He lived, and he won the VictoriaCross, one of 14 awarded that day at the Battle of Isandlwana.Meanwhile, up on a high promontory above the rocky plain, Captain Younghusband and his men weremaking a last stand. They had fought till they were exhausted. Younghusband now knew there was noammunition left for their Martini-Henry rifles. He shook each of his men by the hand and said goodbye.One by one they fell to the assegais.
But suddenly Younghusband spotted, from high on the mountain,one ammunition cart left behind, and raced down towards it. The Zulus couldn't believe what they wereseeing. Before long, one of them killed Younghusband with a rifle shot—and then they carried him alofton their war-shields back to the crag on which his men lay dead and dying, because he was a hero tothem.David Rattray had dozens more such stories. Of Charles Raw, chasing after a herd of cattle on “a hellishhot day”, suddenly arriving at the edge of a ravine and seeing, as far as the eye could see, thousands ofZulus squatting in absolute silence on their war-shields. Of Teignmouth Melvill, washed downstream inthe rapids of the Buffalo river but still holding the Queen's Colours high above his head. Of CharlesHarford, who found the case and pole of those Colours in the river mud—the embroidery torn off by thewater—and who, during one sortie, had wandered off to observe a strange new species of beetle andcapture it in a matchbox.Mr Rattray, an entomologist by training, liked Harford especially.
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