To Tintoretto in Venice
The Art of Painting had in the ‘Primitive’ years looked with the light, not toward it. Before Tintoretto’s date, however, many ‘painters practiced shadows and lights, and turned more or less sunwards; but he set the figure between himself and a full sun. His work is to be known in Venice by the splendid trick of an occulted sun and a shadow cast straight at the spectator.
Tintoretto’s thronged procession to Calvary and his standing Cross are two of the greatest of his multitude of paintings in Venice.
MASTER, thy enterprise
Magnificent, magnanimous, was well done,
Which seized the head of Art, and turned her eyes
— The simpleton — and made her face the sun.
Magnificent, magnanimous, was well done,
Which seized the head of Art, and turned her eyes
— The simpleton — and made her face the sun.
Long had she sat content,
Her young unlessoned back to an east impearled,
To a golden west, to a mingled firmament,
And looked upon a gently lighted world.
Her young unlessoned back to an east impearled,
To a golden west, to a mingled firmament,
And looked upon a gently lighted world.
But thy imperial call
Bade her to stand with thee and breast the light,
And therefore face the shadows, mystical,
Sombre, translucent, vestiges of night,
Bade her to stand with thee and breast the light,
And therefore face the shadows, mystical,
Sombre, translucent, vestiges of night,
Yet glories of the day.
Eagle! We know thee by thy undaunted eyes
Sky-ward, and by thy glooms; we know thy way
Ambiguous, and those halo-misted dyes.
Eagle! We know thee by thy undaunted eyes
Sky-ward, and by thy glooms; we know thy way
Ambiguous, and those halo-misted dyes.
Thou Cloud, the bridegroom’s friend
(The bridegroom sun)! Master, we know thy sign:
A mystery of hues world-without-end;
And hide-and-seek of gamesome and divine;
(The bridegroom sun)! Master, we know thy sign:
A mystery of hues world-without-end;
And hide-and-seek of gamesome and divine;
Shade of the noble head
Cast hitherward upon the noble breast;
Human solemnities twice hallowèd;
The haste to Calvary, the Cross at rest.
Cast hitherward upon the noble breast;
Human solemnities twice hallowèd;
The haste to Calvary, the Cross at rest.
Look sunward, Angel, then!
Carry the heavens forever by that hand.
Still be the interpreter of suns to men;
And shadow us, O thou Tower — for thou shalt stand!
Carry the heavens forever by that hand.
Still be the interpreter of suns to men;
And shadow us, O thou Tower — for thou shalt stand!