Essay

People might not have heard of Artist Jacopo Robusti, but they definitely know the name Tintoretto or find it familiar, well, at the very least, very catchy and Italian. The name Tinoretto, the little dyer, was taken from his father's profession as a dyer. In his teenage years, he luckily became an apprentice of Titian, however, their bond broke of when the Titan had a resentment of Tintoretto’s proud nature and his exceeding accomplishments. Nonetheless, Tinoretto’s style has inherited Titan’s use of bright colour pigments. He then went to the Venetian School, where he continued to study painting. This time, energized human postures in Michelangelo’s paintings forever expanded Tinoretto’s knowledge in the human anatomy. Nevertheless, what makes Tinoretto so unique is the fact that although he is considered a mannerist, he openly accepted and absorbed from other artists that inspired him and used that as his assets; he was always trying to learn new things. What is more admirable about Tintoretto is that he was able to combine the techniques he learned and create something new of his own: dramatic narrative stories on canvas. Advantage of his made his work well known in his 20s and the attention of Venice when he was only 30 years old, which is comparatively a lot younger than the majority of painters in the Renaissance period. Tinoretto’s fame was made possible in 1548, when he was commissioned by the Scuola Grande di San Marco ----- one of Venice's six Scuole Grandi that affiliated christine church----- to produce art and was highly appreciated, to the point where commissioned work was constantly provided for him. And that is the reason why most of Tinoretto’s work depicted the poverty and humility of Christ and his followers.

Master Tinoretto was born in 1518 CE, Venice, Italy and died peacefully in May 31, 1594 at his homeland. He lived almost exactly during the predominance of mannerism in Italy from the end of the High Renaissance in the 1520s to the beginnings of the Baroque style around 1590. Mannerism style originated in Florence and Rome and spread to northern Italy and, ultimately, to much of central and northern Europe. Term Mannerism is from maniera in Italian, which is defined as personal style. The Mannerists used their mastery of perspective, modeling, line, and color to create artificial worlds that were nevertheless painstakingly 'realistic' in their details. Mannerism works are often characterized by the exaggeration or alteration of proportions, posture, and expression, which sometimes even might be bizarre.

As I was browsing through Tinoretto’s work, his “The Deposition of Christ” caught my attention immediately. I was lost in the character’s expressive facial expressions and body language. The use of colour was also truly mastery; Christ and the woman who seems weak are painted with a very pale skin colour to contrast the people who are very much alive. This painting was finished in 1562, it is over 6 feet wide, and is a very powerful religious picture evoking both the sacrificial body of Christ and the humility of the Virgin.

here is my lighting imitation:

what I like about this painting is that every figure has a different lighting and tone. In the order from left to right, the first figure has warm tone and light shooting at his upper left side, second a white but neutral tone light was shoot right at him at the angle he tilted his head (I added the shadow using ps), the third has a slightly yellow light just on my left and a white light from the back of her when I shot the photo, the next girl had a yellow toned light mostly at her left side to create a obvious contrast of shadow on the bridge of her nose, and least but not least I used cold but sightly yellow toned light and put it above Selina to have the lower part of her face shadowed.

shout out to Jack, ,Krysten, , and Selina for contributing their rarest expression to my work!!