A visual Journey into the Bible - Theartofpainting.be

The Deuteronomy Page: 30 / 334When Jacopo Robusti painted the ‘Annunciation to Manoah’s Wife’ he was aboutforty years old and he had not yet delivered his most formidable work. He was stilllooking to gain not so much the admiration of Venice as her astonishment. His pictureis one of two paintings, painted both to Old Testament themes. The other picture is the‘Meeting of Tamar and Judith’ and both pictures are now in the Thyssen-BornemiszaCollection in Madrid. The pictures have a very similar composition.In the ‘Annunciation’ we see Manoah’s Wife on the left, the angel on the right. Thecomposition is in a traditional ‘Open V’ and in the open space between the twofigures we remark a beautiful landscape, a sea with a port town. Tintoretto painted theangel and Manoah’s wife to the sides, even showing them only partly. He did that tobe able to show more of the landscape. Few painters would have dared to cut off partsof their main figures of a theme, but we may assume that the pieces of Tintoretto wereaimed primarily as decoration for a hall of a Venetian palace so that the decorativeview received most attention. Tintoretto was already a renowned artist who couldafford to use such a representation without being scolded at by his commissioners. Hewas also a painter who knew that his viewers would have no effort in imagining thewhole figures. He knew that the power of imagination needed only to be stimulated alittle by hints of figures.The view of the landscape of Tintoretto is grand indeed. Tintoretto painted a darkgreen tree on the left and an ochre hillside on the right, still topped with a tree. Thelandscape view opens between these two. Jacopo Tintoretto was mostly concentratedon the expression of his figures, so this painting of a landscape is remarkable in that itproved Tintoretto also to be a great landscape painter – if he only thought landscape tobe important. He obtained an astonishing, epic view by having the sun throw straight,silvery lines over lake and town. The view is imaginary, and does not have much todo with a Bible story, but it is particularly striking. Tintoretto applied several differenthues of colour in the sky that lies heavily, laden with dark clouds over the view. Thehorizon is low and if the sky were not imposingly enough, Tintoretto added dark,massive hills – probably as he knew from the Venetian Alps – to the really flat andsmall town. We think of Naples, oppressed by its Vulcan, or of so many other smallItalian towns in bays of the Adriatic of the Mediterranean/ Look at the marvellousplay of light of the sunrays on the sea and on the clouds. The sea glows silvery and thesky is tainted yellow-orange with a richness of hues that reminds of Titian. The worksof man, its architecture, is large and grand when compared to man himself, but herethe Roman columns of ancient temples remain very small in the grandeur of nature.Tintoretto borrowed elements from his illustrious competitors. He painted animals inhis picture. We see cows, deer and birds. Jacopo Bassano was famous for his picturesof scenes with many animals. Bassano’s paintings were much admired in Venice.Tintoretto seemed to have told with this painting of the ‘Annunciation’ that he wasJacopo Robusti, but that he could also paint animal scenes if he only put his mind andconsiderable professional skills to it. He could be equal to Jacopo Bassano when itcame to painting animals in landscapes.But of course, Tintoretto was Tintoretto. So he stayed committed to force of colour –with which he could equal Titian – and to bring the expression of emotionsspectacularly close to the viewer. The angel in his painting looks at the viewer andManoah’s wife bows ostentatiously with grace.Copyright: René Dewil Date: October 2001