MADRID, SPAIN.- The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum is presenting Tintoretto. The Paradise, the 19th in its series Contexts of the Permanent Collection. The exhibition is jointly organised with the Musée du Louvre and the Musei Civici Veneziani. It focuses on the great canvas in the Museum’s permanent collection normally on display in the Man Hall, painted by Tintoretto, one of the leading artists of the second half of the 16th century. It also analyses the competition organised to decorate the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Doge’s Palace in Venice, which also involved Francesco Bassano, Palma Giovane and Veronese. After its showing at the Louvre and its presentation in Madrid, where it is sponsored by Banco Simeón and Fidelidade Mundial, the exhibition travels to the Doge’s Palace in Venice.

Tintoretto. The Paradise brings together the proposals presented by the two winners of the competition, Veronese and Bassano, which are known through their preparatory studies now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille, and the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, respectively. It also includes Palma Giovane’s composition from the Pinatoceca Ambrosiana in Milan and the two studies by Tintoretto from the Louvre and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. The exhibition offers the chance to compare Tintoretto’s two proposals as well as the opportunity to see these five canvases (all of large size and horizontal format) together for the first time since 1580. Visitors can assess the jury’s decision which initially awarded the commission to Veronese and Bassano, and subsequently to Tintoretto.

The long story of the Venetian Paradise - On 20 December 1577 during the reign of Doge Sebastiano Venier, a devastating fire destroyed most of the principal rooms in the Doge’s Palace in Venice, including the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, the most important space in the building. All the paintings which decorated it were seriously damaged, in particular the large fresco painted in 1365 by the Paduan artist Guariento on the theme of The Coronation of the Virgin surrounded by Celestial

Hierarchies, also known as The Glory of the Paradise or The Paradise. This important work functioned as a backdrop to the area of the room known as the “Tribunal”, where the Doge and his councillors met. The location of the fresco implied a clear political message through the close visual link established between the celestial hierarchy in the clouds around the triumph of the Virgin and the real life assemblies that met in the presence of the Doge in a space that was the hub of Venetian power. Venice was thus a paradise and its hierarchical government the earthly replica of the celestial hierarchy.

Every Venetian artist of note collaborated on the reconstruction of the Doge’s Palace in one of the most important restoration projects undertaken in late 16th-century Europe. Nonetheless, bearing in mind the political and artistic implications of the decoration of the Doge’s tribune, it was considered appropriate to convene a competition to replace the most important work of art in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio. The climate of Venice meant that fresco painting was difficult to preserve, and for this reason it was decided to replace Guariento’s work with a canvas that would be installed over it and would therefore be of huge size: the largest oil painting of its day.

The competition was convened around 1582 and the required subject was the same as that of the original fresco. Tintoretto and Veronese, the two great Venetian masters who dominated the artistic panorama after the death of Titian, entered, as well as younger artists such as Palma Giovane and Francesco Bassano. In 1564, prior to the dramatic fire, there had already been an unsuccessful attempt to replace Guariento’s fresco, which seems to have been in poor condition by that date. The commission was given at that point to the painter from the Marches, Federico Zuccaro. Preparatory studies survive but Zuccaro never executed the final work, possibly due to the opposition of local artists who objected to a non-Venetian artist decorating the most important and symbolic space in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio. Among these objectors, Tintoretto may have played a leading role. On that occasion he presented an alternative proposal to Zuccaro’s, which is the preparatory study now in the Louvre.

Veronese and Francesco Bassano, two artists of notably different styles, were the winners of the competition of the early 1580s. The fact that Veronese had appeared before the Inquisition in 1573 in relation to his painting of The Last Supper possibly influenced the jury’s decision to award him the commission jointly with Francesco Bassano. The latter was considered a more traditional and rigorous artist with regard to iconographic issues, as well as less imaginative. It is equally possible that Veronese himself, exhausted by an excess of work, suggested the collaboration. In reality, although friends, these two artists were of such differing artistic personalities that a collaborative effort was in reality impossible. We only need to compare Bassano’s precise, almost realistic modello with Veronese’s unreal and luminous one. The difficulty of combining the two styles meant that the project foundered.

Tintoretto had entered the new competition with the same study that he proposed in 1564 as a response to Zuccaro’s proposal, but now updated to fit the new space as it was rebuilt after the fire. He eliminated the ceiling arches, which no longer existed in the room, cutting down the canvas at the top and adding a strip at the bottom to balance out the proportions of the Tribune. The death of Veronese in 1588 and the delay in starting work on Bassano’s part - probably already suffering from the depression which would lead him to commit suicide in 1592 following the death of his father, the great artist Jacopo Bassano - would incline the matter in Tintoretto’s favour. He produced a second preparatory study, the largest and most impressive, in which he omitted all the unconvincing elements in his earlier proposal and adapted his composition to the taste of the day, with large-scale figures in the upper part of the composition in line with the Council of Trent’s desire to give greater emphasis to religious iconography. This is the painting now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the one that would gain Tintoretto the commission for this highly important project.

Jacopo Tintoretto (1519-1594) - Son of a dyer (hence his nickname), Jacopo Robusti was born in Venice in 1519. Little is known of his artistic training, although he was already established in his native city as an independent master in 1539. His early paintings reveal knowledge of the work of artists such as Paris Bordone and Bonifazio de’ Pitati. Tintoretto’s first important commission dates from 1548, when the Scuola Grande di San Marco requested the first oil in a series on its patron saint. This canvas, painted for the meeting room of the Chapter, depicts Saint Mark freeing a Slave. Tintoretto’s masterpiece already reveals characteristics of his unique style with its use of bold foreshortening, artificial poses and brilliant colouring.

The artist was also commissioned to decorate another important Venetian scuole, that of San Rocco. He worked in stages, producing a succession of canvases not only depicting the life of Saint Roch but also scenes from the life of Christ, the Virgin and the Passion in works that deployed startling effects of light and colour. Along with religious painting, Tintoretto also executed portraits and mythological paintings. He ran an active workshop which employed some of his own children; Domenico, Marco, and his daughter Marietta.