2 days ago
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Tintoretto's ‘Crucifixion' Is Resurrected in Venice
Venice
Tintoretto's 'Crucifixion' in this city's Sala dell'Albergo ('board room') of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, completed in 1565, provokes hyperbole, and not just because of its impressive size—a monumental 17 by 40 feet. In September 1845, the 26-year-old aspiring critic John Ruskin wrote to his father, in London, that he had been 'quite overwhelmed' by the 'enormous powers' of 'Tintoret.' He was so moved by the 'Crucifixion' that in his book 'The Stones of Venice' he declared it 'beyond all analysis and above all praise.' The art historian and Tintoretto specialist Frederick Ilchman, a curator of the 2018-19 exhibition commemorating the 500th anniversary of the artist's birth, regards the 'Crucifixion' as his greatest work. And one young painter recently told me that seeing the painting changed his life.
