Drawing in Tintoretto’s Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto (1518/19-1594) was among the most distinctive artists of the Italian Renaissance. Yet, although his bold paintings are immediately recognizable, his drawings remain unfamiliar even to many scholars. Drawing in Tintorettos Venice offers a complete overview of Tintoretto as a draftsman. It begins with a look at drawings by Tintorettos precedents and contemporaries, a discussion intended to illuminate Tintorettos sources as well as his originality, and also to explore the historiographical and critical questions that have framed all previous discussion of Tintorettos graphic work. Subsequent chapters explore Tintorettos evolution as a draftsman and the role that drawings played in his artistic practiceboth preparatory drawings for his paintings and the many studies after sculptures byMichelangelo and othersthus examining the use of drawings within the studio as well as teaching practices in the workshop. Later chapters focus on the changes to Tintorettos style as he undertook ever larger commissions and accordingly began to manage a growing number of assistants, with special attention paid to Domenico Tintoretto, Palma Giovane, and other artists whose drawing style was infl uenced by their time working with the master. The book is published in conjunction with the exhibition Drawing in Tintorettos Venice, opening at the Morgan Library& Museum, New York, in 2018 and travelling to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in early 2019. All of the drawings in the exhibition are discussed and illustrated, and a checklist of the exhibition is also included in the volume, but the book is a far more widely ranging account ofTintorettos drawings and a comprehensive account of his work as a draftsman.