Tintoretto, Jacopo (1519–1594)

Abstract Real name: Robusti. Venetian painter. He received his nickname from his father's profession as cloth dyer ( tintore ). Unlike many of his contemporaries, he painted very few secular subjects. He was practicing as an independent artist by 1539, when he collaborated with others in the creation of cassone panels. In his early paintings he used classical backgrounds. He also used unusual perspectives as in St. George and the Dragon (1560), Christ Washing the Feet of his Disciples (1547), The Last Supper (1592–94), the Gathering of the Manna (1592), and the Entombment of Christ (1592). In the Last Supper the table is placed cornerwise while the apostles stretch away from Christ. In the early 1560s Tintoretto began his choir paintings, including the Last Judgment at the Church of the Madonna dell'Orto. At about the same time he was commissioned to produce three large paintings for the Scuola Grande di S. Marco: The Removal of the Body of St. Mark from the Funeral Pyre , The Finding of the Body of St. Mark , and St. Mark Saving the Saracen from Shipwreck .