Three ways of looking at a New Testament scene
In ArtNews, Frederick Ilchman a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, walks readers through one example of how the rivalry among the three subjects of the MFA's current exhibition, "Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese," played itself out. (Sebastian Smee reviewed the show a couple of weeks ago.) The three were the leading artists in Venice in the 1500s.
His case study involves the artists' treatment of the Supper at Emmaus, an incident from the Gospel of Luke: After Jesus's crucifixion, two apostles on the road to Emmaus meet a stranger on the road and invite him to join them for dinner at an inn. As they break bread, the man reveals himself to be Christ.
For Titian, Ilchman writes, painting in the early 1530s, the scene is artistically and theologically about proportion and equilibrium. The "astounded disciples are arranged symmetrically" around Jesus, while the table and room "create a strong rectilinear grid." And while the disciples may be amazed, you might not guess it from their demeanor: The painting "suggests that devotion and concentration … are more important than revelation."
In contrast, Tintoretto, who took on the same subject circa 1542, in his mid-20s -- a Young Turk relative to Titian -- puts his own spin on things, almost literally: The table is askew, the composition arranged on diagonals, and the apostles jolted into motion by the astonishing news. The brushstrokes are "expressive, even deliberately hasty" in comparison with those of Titian. Arrogant though it may seem, Ilchman suggests, Tintoretto is enacting his own explosion onto the Venetian scene as he depicts a similar announcement from the Son of God.
Paolo Veronese "tried to have the last word," Ilchman writes, and, in a more crowded tableaux, synthesized the two approaches.
(The article isn't online, but you can find the March issue of ArtNews here.)
