Tintoretto, The Finding of the Body of Saint Mark, c. 1562-66
-
0:00 - 0:06(piano music)
-
0:06 - 0:08Male voiceover: We're in the Brera
in Milan and we're looking at -
0:08 - 0:14an enormous painting by Tintoretto, but
this is only one of a series of paintings -
0:14 - 0:19on the subject of Saint Mark,
the single most important
Saint for the city of Venice. -
0:19 - 0:23Female voiceover: This was commissioned
for the Scuola of Saint Mark -
0:23 - 0:29or the confraternity of Saint Mark
in Venice by a man named Rangone. -
0:29 - 0:31Male voiceover: And he can be seen in
the middle of the painting kneeling -
0:31 - 0:34in that fabulous gold brocade.
-
0:34 - 0:36Female voiceover: Gesturing
down to the body of Saint Mark. -
0:36 - 0:41Now, this whole painting takes
place creepily in a cemetery. -
0:41 - 0:42Male voiceover: (laughing) It is creepy.
-
0:42 - 0:44Female voiceover: It's really
creepy. It's really dark. -
0:44 - 0:46Male voiceover: (laughing)
Well it's a night scene. -
0:46 - 0:47Female voiceover: And
it's lit by a candle. -
0:47 - 0:52So, you have this vast architectural
space created by this rushing, -
0:52 - 0:54exaggerated perspective.
-
0:54 - 0:57Male voiceover: But before we get
lost in the painting, let's talk about -
0:57 - 0:59what's actually taking
place, what's happening here. -
0:59 - 1:00Female voiceover: Okay.
-
1:00 - 1:03Male voiceover: So this is the story of
the finding of the body of Saint Mark. -
1:03 - 1:08Saint Mark had died and was buried
in Alexandria that is in Egypt, -
1:08 - 1:12and the story goes that in the 9th
century the Venetian merchants went -
1:12 - 1:13to retrieve the body.
-
1:13 - 1:17Female voiceover: These Venetian merchants
went to find the body of Saint Mark -
1:17 - 1:23to bring it back to Christendom from
Islamic Egypt, from Islamic Alexandria. -
1:23 - 1:25Male voiceover: We have
this perspectival space. -
1:25 - 1:28It draws our eye all the way to
the back, to that dark back wall, -
1:28 - 1:33and there we see a number of figures
both in shadow and silhouette -
1:33 - 1:37finding the body of Saint Mark in
a tomb brilliantly illuminated, -
1:37 - 1:40and you can see the
stone has been picked up. -
1:40 - 1:41Female voiceover: We have
a continuous narrative. -
1:41 - 1:46We have scene two in the foreground
on the left where we see the body -
1:46 - 1:51of Saint Mark foreshortened, splayed
out on the ground on top of a carpet. -
1:51 - 1:54Male voiceover: Painted with a wonderful
looseness that also reminds me of -
1:54 - 1:58Mantegna's dead Christ with a wild
foreshortening and the way that we look -
1:58 - 2:01up the body from the
feet up towards the head. -
2:01 - 2:05Female voiceover: You see the texture
of the oil paint and very dark outlines -
2:05 - 2:08and very stark illumination on that body.
-
2:08 - 2:11Male voiceover: You also see
Tintoretto's patron, the man
who paid for these paintings -
2:11 - 2:16who seems to be gesturing toward the body
of Saint Mark in a very protective way. -
2:16 - 2:18Female voiceover: In a
way that makes us sense -
2:18 - 2:20that figure does not belong to this time.
-
2:21 - 2:23He's not a 9th century Venetian.
-
2:23 - 2:25He's a 16th century Venetian.
-
2:26 - 2:29Male voiceover: There's a kind
of collapsing of time, of space. -
2:29 - 2:30It's a very complicated image.
-
2:30 - 2:33Not only was the body found
in the back of the painting, -
2:33 - 2:36and then we see the body in
the front of the painting -
2:36 - 2:39but then we see this very noble
figure in red and blue who stands -
2:39 - 2:43up just to the left of
this yellow, dead body -
2:43 - 2:45and that is also Saint Mark.
-
2:45 - 2:50Female voiceover: Miraculously alive,
making this grand gesture to stop -
2:50 - 2:53the raiding of the tombs that's
taking place to the right -
2:53 - 2:56where we see yet another body
being removed from a tomb. -
2:56 - 2:58Male voiceover: Okay. So if we look
at the architecture you can see -
2:58 - 3:02again this wonderfully recessive
space with all of these arches -
3:02 - 3:06and to the right of those arches we
can see there's a series of tombs -
3:06 - 3:10that are attached to the walls and in one
close to us a figure is gently lowering -
3:10 - 3:12one of these corpses.
-
3:12 - 3:15So, there's a kind of
desecration at the same time -
3:15 - 3:16that there's a kind of honoring.
-
3:16 - 3:20Female voiceover: Finally, on the
lower right we see two figures who -
3:20 - 3:24are possessed by demons who seem
to be grabbing the body of a woman -
3:24 - 3:26who's moving out of the canvas towards us.
-
3:26 - 3:28Male voiceover: And we haven't
even talked about the thing -
3:28 - 3:31that makes this painting
most remarkable, in my eyes, -
3:31 - 3:35which is the radical use of
light, of color, of space. -
3:35 - 3:38I've never seen a painter
this early that has taken -
3:38 - 3:40such license with the
traditions of painting. -
3:40 - 3:43Female voiceover: The space rushes back.
-
3:43 - 3:47The body of Saint Mark
is heroic and elongated. -
3:47 - 3:52The contrast of light and
dark are dramatic and intense. -
3:52 - 3:55It's as though all the tools of
the Renaissance are being used -
3:55 - 3:57for expressive purpose.
-
3:57 - 3:59Male voiceover: Look at the
way that this produces an image -
3:59 - 4:03that is so different from anything
that we would expect from say Raphael. -
4:03 - 4:06Instead, this is a world
of mystery where only -
4:06 - 4:09the faintest delineation of form is given.
-
4:09 - 4:13Female voiceover: So here we are
in the 1560s after the Reformation, -
4:13 - 4:15after the Council of Trent.
-
4:15 - 4:17This is Mannerism.
-
4:17 - 4:21All of the balance and harmony that
we expect from the high Renaissance -
4:21 - 4:24when we think about artists like Raphael.
-
4:24 - 4:25We have the opposite here.
-
4:25 - 4:29We have a composition that's coming
apart, that's stretching at its seams. -
4:29 - 4:34We can see here decades of Venetian
artists' experience with oil paint. -
4:34 - 4:40Belleni in the late 15th century,
Titian, and here brought to a height -
4:40 - 4:45of painterliness, of real visibility
of brushwork by Tintoretto. -
4:45 - 4:51(piano music)
- Title:
- Tintoretto, The Finding of the Body of Saint Mark, c. 1562-66
- Description:
-
Tintoretto, The Finding of the Body of Saint Mark, c. 1562-66, oil on canvas, 396 x 400 cm (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan)
Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
- Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 04:57
![]() |
Report Bot edited English subtitles for Tintoretto, The Finding of the Body of Saint Mark, c. 1562-66 |