The emblem of Torino is a little bull. I happened upon this one, looking down at me from the wall of a house.
Turin was founded by the ancient Romans; Porta Palatina is a fragment of their city wall.
We stayed on Via Garibaldi, a pedestrianised shopping street in the Centro Storico.
Exploring on the first day, I could hear a drumbeat in the distance. As the drums came closer, fifers started to play ‘The British Grenadiers’, a bizarre choice of tune in this Italian city.
The banner commemorates local hero Pietro Micca, who sacrificed his life in 1706, defending his city against the French.
City of culture
Since the Winter Olympics of 2006, and with the declining importance of industry, Turin has sought to attract tourism. There are free walking tours available from Via Garibaldi, and you’ll happen upon small scale but interesting exhibitions, such as Gli Italiani at the Palazzo Falletti in Barolo, just off Via Garibaldi.
‘The Italians’ was a project undertaken in the sixties by French photographer Bruno Barbey, documenting the lives of ordinary Italians in a country still emerging from the aftermath of the Second World War.
Palermo 1963
Venezia 1962
There are grand museums and galleries too; Turin is home to a collection of Egyptian antiquities second only to the museum in Cairo, and an extraordinary museum of Italian cinema.
Where we ate, what we drank
The restaurants we went to were inexpensive and not touristy. Wines start at around 20 euros a bottle, and are often available in carafe.
La Taverna dei Mercanti
A cosy place with a menu largely based around thinly sliced veal and beef: carpaccio, brasato, tonnato.
If that weren’t confusing enough, I ordered a grappa. Good job I didn’t ask for a large one….
An elegant pour
Tre Galli (three cockerels, not to be confused with its nearby sister restaurant ‘Tre Galline’, three chickens) is a bit of a hipster place near Porta Palazzo market. The highlight for me was this dish of pasta with beans, chestnuts, pumpkin, gorgonzola and a wine reduction; like a big warm hug on a chilly November evening. We followed with a Zabaglione per condividere (a handy phrase, meaning ‘to share’).
Pasta Garfagnano
Pino & Pino was recommended by Giuditta, the owner of our apartment, as somewhere she eats regularly.
(She also has accommodation for skiing and sent me loads of photos, please DM me if you’re interested, and I’ll put you in touch).
We started with a foaming carafe of Frizzante, then demolished a bottle of red Dolcetto.
It was Carciofi (artichoke) season, and there were three specials on the blackboard. We had these ‘fritti’ and a salad of thinly sliced raw artichokes with lemon juice and shaved parmesan.
Anyone for tennis?
I can recommend Turin as a destination for a city break, there’s plenty to see (and eat!).
The ATP tournament is back in 2026, and we’re tempted to go for a return match….
After an exhibition at Musée Maillol, we were enjoying an aperitif outside a bar
but we weren’t expecting a spontaneous lesson in slang.
The bar was at a small crossroads in the 7th arrondissement, the embassy district. A squad of armed police appeared on the corner, and started directing traffic.
As a motorcyclist disobeyed his command and drove off, one of the officers shouted –
‘Putain!’
If you’re a fan of the French TV cop show ‘Spiral’ you’ll recognise the word, it peppers the dialogue liberally, but it was the first time I’ve heard it used in real life.
It means everything from an expression of mild irritation to the F Word; probably the latter on this occasion.
In due course the officers stopped all traffic to allow an SUV with blacked out windows to pass at speed unimpeded, escorted by police motorbikes and unmarked cars with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring.
Musée Maillol for some street culture
Musée Maillol is a good gallery to watch for photography exhibitions.We were there to see ‘Instants Données’ (‘Given Moments’), a retrospective of the work of Robert Doisneau.
‘The marvels of daily life are so exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street’.
Robert Doisneau, 1912 – 1994.
If you don’t recognise the photographer’s name, you’ll know his style. Starting in the 1930s by capturing the street life of children at school and at play, he went on to portray the hardship of workers in the Renault factory, portraits of artists and writers (famously Picasso and de Beauvoir) and downtrodden drinkers in the bars of Paris, reminiscent of the paintings of Toulouse Lautrec.
Earlier in the week we went on an expedition to the extraordinary, ship-shaped Louis Vuitton Foundation in Bois de Boulogne to see the retrospective that David Hockney regards as the most significant of his career.
Curated by the artist himself, he called in favours from collections around the world to loan significant works.
I had seen two Hockney shows before. In 2019 his works were hung alongside pictures by Van Gogh in Amsterdam; he memorably corrected our impression of Van Gogh as a depressive – ‘if you look at his paintings they’re full of joy’.
Then in 2021 came the exhibition of his iPad paintings at the Royal Academy.
In Paris the story begins with a portrait of the artist’s father, painted when Hockney was just 19, then a room of his early works that reflect his sexuality, still illegal at the time. Hockney is still producing work in his eighties, still innovating, and he’s clearly happiest when he’s working.
There’s his largest work to date, painted in the open air: ‘Bigger Trees near Warter’.
It was made of fifty canvas sections small enough to be transported by car, the oil paint still wet.
In 2019 Covid restrictions stranded Hockney at his home in Normandy. He started producing works every day to send to friends by email.
He was there partly to revisit the Bayeux Tapestry, which influenced his mural of the Norman countryside. The Vuitton Gallery is something of a space age warren, and sadly I missed that room altogether, although with over 400 works to view, it wasn’t a disaster…..
The exhibition closes with his collage of photographs of artworks from the 1400s to the present. They illustrate Hockney’s research that led him to the controversial theory that throughout the history of western art, painters have used optical devices to help them produce work. He applied his practitioner’s eye to reach a convincing conclusion.
A feature of the city streets is the engraved plaques commemorating resistance fighters, often unidentified, who were killed in street battles to achieve the liberation of their city in August 1944.
In this anniversary year of Victory in Europe, this poignant memorial in a quiet street in the 7th caught my eye, on my way to the local wine shop.
‘A tribute to Lilian Vera Rolfe.
Born in this building in 1914 and executed in Ravensbrück in 1945.
A radio operator in the service of the British Special Operations Executive, formed in 1940 to support the resistance movements in Europe and to prepare for the landings on 6th June 1944′.
It is only by diligent pestering (you know who you are) that I have been embarrassed into finally writing about a trip to Ljubljana in January 2024.
It’s the capital of Slovenia, a small country similar in size to the Netherlands. After Slovenian, most people speak English, then Hungarian, German or Italian, depending on which country is their nearest neighbour. My research for the visit led me to this handy guide to Slovenian pronunciation, and I realised that understanding the language wouldn’t be a problem….
I came across a helpful article from The Telegraph, which described Lubljana as ‘the Slovenian mirror-image of Edinburgh’. Much of the city is pedestrianised, so it’s very easy to get around. The main landmark in the centre is the Triple Bridge over the river, with plentiful cafés and bars on the riverside nearby.
We were invited to join a party of 14, organised by friends who had lured us to Stockholm in 2019 and Oslo in 2022, so despite being first timers we knew we would have fun.
It was mid January and Twelfth Night had been and gone, but the city was still decorated for Christmas. I asked a waitress when the decorations would be taken down. She looked puzzled for a moment, then vaguely suggested around the end of the month.
The building behind the Christmas tree (above) is a Franciscan monastery. It has an interesting museum attached, where I saw a photo of monks who were captured by the Gestapo during WW2.
Slovenia became part of Yugoslavia in 1945, and gained independence in 1991. ‘We have no ego’, says a local, ‘we’ve spent so long under the control of other people we’ve never learned to sneer’.
Another museum is dedicated to Joze Plecnik (1872-1957) in his home (below). His influence on Ljubljana has been compared to that of Gaudi on Barcelona. After working in Prague and Vienna he designed the city’s most distinctive buildings, including the Triple Bridge.
We stayed at the Heritage Hotel, Cevljarska Ulica 2, which is centrally located and the reception staff gave us helpful restaurant suggestions.
I particularly enjoyed the buffet breakfasts, with their novelty of a different fruit crumble every day!
Watch this space for recommendations on where to eat in Ljubljana, and features on the central market (I do like a market, and this one didn’t disappoint), a wine tasting at Grajska Vinoteka in Ljubljana Castle; and an expedition to the spectacular Castle Bled, with lunch in its restaurant where the view made be think of the villain’s lair in a Bond film.
Stanley Kubrick – I’ll come back to this one with a dedicated post. First seen in Paris in 2011, at La Cinémathèque Française, I didn’t realise it was on an extended world tour. While it finished at The Design Museum in September 2019, there’s a chance you’ll be able to catch it somewhere in the world in coming years.
Stanley Kubrick, The Exhibition
Other highlights:
Sargent at the National Museum of Sweden.
Sorolla, Master of Light, at The National Gallery, London.
‘Two Welsh actors walk into a bar; they both start to pontificate’
I wasn’t expecting much of The Two Popes. It’s a fictionalised account of Pope Benedict’s decision to abdicate, and nominate his unwilling successor, Pope Francis. Both men have troubled pasts.
Anthony Hopkins plays the rigid German who adheres to Catholicism in its strictest form, but sees the need for the church to modernise. Jonathan Pryce plays the football-loving Argentinian who intends to resign as Cardinal, but is then summoned to Rome. Filmed in locations including the Sistine Chapel and Argentina, it’s a large scale film that centres on the relationship of the two men with great humanity.
The Traitor at The London Film Festival is also based on a true story, of a minor mafioso who is persuaded to return from anonymity in Brazil to become a central witness at the Sicilian Mafia Maxi-Trials of the 1980s. It’s a chilling insight into recent events in Italian history.
Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes is a documentary charting the history of the record label from its foundation in 1939 by two white German immigrants, Alfred Lion and Max Magulis. Unconcerned by commercial considerations, they loved the music, treated the artists well, and nurtured their creativity. From around 1947 the label embraced modern jazz. Changes of ownership followed Lion and Magulis’s retirement in the 1960s. Since 2012 it has been under the stewardship of its current president Don Was, who has overseen its revival, attracting a new generation of musicians.
The Favourite was a major disappointment. I really expected to enjoy it. Visually striking but dull.
The Souvenir was my Turkey of the Year. I’ll never get those two hours of my life back.
Theatre: two Shakespeares, two Wiltons
The Sam Wanamaker Theatre at The Globe is an intimate space, a recreation of a Jacobean theatre, illuminated by candlelight. An eerie production of Macbeth in January opened in darkness; a single candle was lit, the Thane of Cawdor encountered the witches in near-darkness, and was propelled towards his blood-soaked destiny.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Bridge was a mischievous delight. The central joke, that Titania should be bewitched to fall in love with Bottom, was playfully inverted; it was Oberon who fell for the ass.
Wilton’s Music Hall, Grace Alley
Sinatra: Raw at Wilton’s Music Hall was an enjoyable suspension of disbelief, written and brilliantly performed by Richard Shelton.
‘You all know Somethin’ Stupid, yeah? Well if you’re thinking of singing it on your way home, I’ve got some advice for you’
A Christmas Carol, also at Wilton’s, was rewritten as another gender inversion; Ebenezer Scrooge died young, and his sister Fan, played by Sally Dexter, reverts to her maiden name after she is widowed from Jacob Marley.
The bar at Wilton’s, Christmas 2019
Miss Scrooge resolutely resists the blandishments of the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, and in desperation the ghosts transport her to 2019, where she witnesses her female descendant running the family business, beset by all the pressures of 21st century technology.
Scrooge returns to her own time, committed to devoting her fortune to the empowerment of women, and to celebrate Christmas in a last act that owes a big debt to panto.
Music:
In February I anticipated that Booker T Jones might just be my gig of the year.
Van Morrison at The Roundhouse was a strong contender in July. People complain he doesn’t play all the hits, but with a back catalogue like his, who can blame him? They say he only plays for an hour and a quarter, he doesn’t do encores, choosing instead to wander offstage mid-song.
He performs on his own terms. The Roundhouse was a perfect venue, and he and his band were on fine form. As a bonus, Chris Farlowe guested for ‘They Call it Stormy Monday (and Tuesday’s just as bad)’, and he’s still in good voice.
Van Morrison at The Roundhouse
But my pick of the year goes to Quentin Collins (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Andrew McCormack (piano) at The 606 Club, playing the music of Chick Corea and Woody Shaw.
They regularly perform with The Kyle Eastwood Band, one of my favourite acts, who we always catch at Ronnie Scott’s.
It was my first time at The 606 Club. It’s on Lot’s Road, in the wasteland of blocks of luxury flats beyond The World’s End in Chelsea. There’s an illuminated purple sign above the doorway – ring the bell and they buzz you in.
The club is in a basement, of course, with tables that seated perhaps 35 people on a Wednesday in November. Quentin Collins described it as ‘the most authentic jazz room in London’.
Quentin Collins
We couldn’t have been any closer to the musicians. Quentin came on stage after the break with a modest glass of red wine, and asked politely if he could put it on our table.
Steve Ruby, the proprietor of the club, joined the band on stage to play flute on ‘Bud Powell’.
Having a song named after you, wouldn’t that be cool?
The Army Museum is well worth a visit for the insights it offers into Swedish history.
It’s one of over a dozen museums in Stockholm that offer free admission.
The Army Museum, with the dome of Hedvig Eleonora church behind
Walking towards the museum, there’s a separate entrance at the side, with a sign to ‘Artilleriet’ and a menu. I decided to investigate.
This is no ordinary museum cafeteria; it’s a handsomely appointed restaurant where you can enjoy lunch, dinner, or a cocktail at the bar.
A glass of Cava on the sunny terrace is a reasonable 60 kronor, or about £5.50. (That’s SEK 300 a bottle – the rate of exchange can be intimidating!)
It’s worth noting that like many establishments in Stockholm, Artilleriet is ‘cash free’.
The dining room at Artilleriet
Not to be distracted by temptation, I continued to the main entrance of the museum.
Once inside, courteous staff greet you; they will direct you to a locker if you need one.
I was impressed by the variety of shapes and sizes available. The tall ones are equipped with a hanger for a raincoat (or perhaps a dress uniform).
It’s also notable that, like the museum, they’re free.
Lockers on parade
It may seem strange to recommend a museum devoted to the military exploits of a neutral country that sat out two world wars. It’s worth remembering that the Swedish armies of the 17th and 18th centuries were notorious for their rapacious brutality, mostly inflicted on Poland and Russia.
The museum displays start with trophies of war and among the conventional glass cases that follow are some fairly gruesome full size tableaux depicting warfare and the privations of army life.
By the 20th century, Sweden was neutral
The fearsome reputation of Swedish soldiery faded as they started to lose battles, and by the 19th century the army was largely deployed to work on civil engineering projects.
Raoul Wallenberg
In the 2nd World War, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg was despatched to occupied Hungary, where he helped save the lives of tens of thousands of Hungarian jews. He was arrested by the Russians in 1945, and detained by SMERSH on suspicion of espionage. The KGB reported his death in 1947, in the Lubyanka prison in Moscow. The circumstances of his detention and death remain mysterious.
Coming face to face with the past
In the 20th century gallery, you reach exhibits devoted to Sweden’s part in the Cold War, and their fear of being located between the two super-powers.
But before you reach modern times, you’ll come face to face with these three ‘gentlemen’, galloping out of the 18th century, straight at you.
On 10th August 1628, the royal flagship Vasa set sail in Stockholm harbour on her maiden voyage. Her Dutch designers were nervous of her seaworthiness, but the Swedish court was equally nervous of communicating this to the king.
Within minutes, a gust of wind caught her sails, and the ship listed dangerously to one side. To the relief of the onlookers, the wind dropped and she righted herself, but moments later a second gust tipped her further over, seawater rushed in through the gun ports, and the ship swiftly disappeared beneath the water.
Of around 450 men (and women) on board, it is estimated that 30 died.
Salvage
Vasa lay on the seabed for 333 years until the wreck was salvaged in 1961, and the process of conservation began. If she had sailed well, we wouldn’t have her today.
The ship was reconstructed from 40,000 finds, and the Vasa Museum claims that what we see today is 98% original. The rigging consists of 4km of new rope, secured by deadeyes, the lighter coloured of which are replicas, the dark ones are original.
The rigging of the Vasa, secured by deadeyes
The state of preservation of the wreck is attributed to the waters of the harbour being being less salty than the open sea, and the thick layers of mud and silt that accumulated over the ship.
Conservation continues, but it’s believed that she cannot be preserved for ever.
The Vasa Museum
Visible across the harbour, the exterior of the museum is topped by three red masts. They represent the original height of the upper timbers of the Vasa, which were not recovered.
The Vasa Museum
Inside, the museum is arranged over 5 levels, so you can get very close to the ship itself. On each level are exhibits which are a time capsule, giving an insight into the complete society that existed on board.
It’s the personal effects that provoke your emotional response
This sea chest lay unopened until the ship was raised; inside was its owner’s hat, and under it his belongings were found undisturbed. They are displayed in a case nearby: his shoes, a pair of gauntlets, vessels for eating and drinking, a few coins….
The sailor’s seachest
Shoes and boots recovered from the Vasa
The ship’s crew was served by only two latrines, in the foc’sle; (it must have been an exposed and risky business to use them in heavy seas!)
Look for the tall rectangular ‘box’ in the photo….
One of the ship’s latrines is visible below the ropes of the bowsprit
Vasa was built as a symbol of
Swedish royal power
Her stern is higher than was normal for a ship of this period, partly to accommodate the elaborate decorative sculptures.
Traces of paint and gold leaf have revealed that the ship was originally ornamented with gilding and brightly coloured paint.
The Vasa’s stern
She is typical of Dutch ships of the time, intended to sail the shallow waters of the Baltic. The lack of a deep keel was compensated for by a broad beam to accommodate rocks as ballast.
It is believed that her height, the extensive surface area of the sails, and inadequate ballast, all contributed to her sinking.
Replica of a gunport
The wreck also revealed that Vasa sailed her first and final voyage with her gunports open….
The captain’s view
You can pre-book tickets online to avoid crowds at busy times.
It opens with David Hockney on film, talking to camera about his own work, Van Gogh, and the exhibition. “It’s a good title – better than ‘The Vince & Dave Show’,” he says with a mischievous twinkle. Wearing a peppermint-green sweater and yellow spectacle frames, he’s a colourful and impish presence, pausing for thought or a drag on his constantly smouldering cigarette. Van Gogh had a reputation for being miserable, he says.
“He wasn’t miserable when he was painting, was he? His paintings are full of joy”.
Both artists’ works are life-affirming celebrations of seasonal landscapes, from ‘nature’s erection’ (as Hockney describes spring) to felled trees in winter. Hockney’s are his response to Woldgate, East Yorkshire, Van Gogh’s to the sun-saturated fields of wheat and lavender of Provence. Both are hung from walls of bold block colour. Van Gogh’s are small by comparison to the larger scale works by Hockney, but there’s a direct emotional connection between their treatments of landscape.
The first room is dominated by vast, colourful treatments of woodland by Hockney. Van Gogh’s smaller “Undergrowth” hangs from a central pillar; it’s a pattern of straight & writhing trees in a green and blue sea of leaves and ivy, with splashes of sunlit gold highlighting shadowy purple.
Poster at the Van Gogh Museum
Admittedly there’s a sense that, seen in isolation, the exhibition is a Hockney retrospective interspersed with a few works by Van Gogh. One of the last works is a large scale collage, ‘In the Studio’. In it are references to Hockney’s paintings in progress, leaning against or hanging on the walls: the subjects seem random, an Annunciation of the Madonna is juxtaposed with a couple having sex on a bed. The room is ‘furnished’ by photos of furniture (stools, chairs, a carpet) apparently pasted in; the simple chairs could be read as a reference to Van Gogh’s depictions. David Hockney himself stands in the centre of the picture, which he refers to as a ‘Reversed Perspective’ – normally you, the viewer, are fixed outside the picture plane, looking in. Here you can step inside the picture and look around.
van gogh museum
Any sense of imbalance at the number of works by Hockney is redressed as you pass from the exhibition galleries to the permanent Van Gogh Museum. It’s a great foil, Vincent following the David Show, with works by him and his contemporaries, his letters, and information on his life.
Photography was not allowed in the exhibition, so here are some tulips
Hockney – Van Gogh, The Joy of Nature to May 26th, 2019
To mark the 350th anniversary of the painter’s death, this exhibition displays the Rijksmuseum’s entire collection of Rembrandt’s works, consisting of 300 etchings, 60 drawings and 22 paintings. They are not usually all on public display at the same time.
in the first gallery is a self portrait, an etching not much bigger than a postage stamp.
Self portrait in a soft cap, c1634
the image becomes the poster boy for the show, hanging as giant reproductions around Amsterdam and in the museum shop.
Self portrait as poster boy
‘The Nightwatch’ is the only work not included in the exhibition; it remains in its place in the Hall of Honour. A crowd of schoolchildren was sitting spellbound in front of the canvas when I visited, as their teachers explained what was going on in the painting.
Bringing The Night Watch to life
A major restoration and cleaning of ‘The Nightwatch’ is due to start later in 2019. The work will be carried out behind a glass screen in the gallery, in full view of visitors.
Explaining Rembrandt
You can explore the mysteries of The Nightwatch here:
All the Rembrandts is a fascinating opportunity to view the collection, although I must confess I found it a bit of an outing for completist academics.
Now I know why you should be wary of an invitation to “come up and see my etchings”. You might never get away.
All the Rembrandts to June 10th, 2019 at the Rijksmuseum
I’ve always enjoyed grand portraits by the great artists: Van Dyck, Velazquez, Gainsborough, you know the list.
I came late to John Singer Sargent. I first encountered his work at an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2015. Two years later I was enchanted by the intimacy of his watercolours at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, and last year his portrait of Samuel-Jean de Pozzi was a highlight of High Society at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
A retrospective of Sargent’s work was the hot ticket for the re-opening of the National Museum, Stockholm, in 2018. It was time to renew some acquaintances.
Mrs Mary Hammersley, 1892
Mrs Mary Hammersley, a society hostess, is pictured in the drawing room of her Hampstead home, where she lives with her banker husband, and everything sparkles: the conversation, the furnishings, her dress, her slippers.
Sisters Ena and Betty Wertheimer are encountered on their way to the ball, arm in arm; one in ruby velvet, the other in ivory damask.
“Mr Sargent, we feel drop-dead gorgeous, our Daddy is rich, and our dresses are fabulous….”
Ena & Betty, daughters of Asher & Mrs Wertheimer. 1901. (detail)
Sargent was a hugely successful society painter, heir to the tradition of courtly swagger portraits. Like Velazquez, he was able to paint without preparatory drawing, creating images directly onto canvas with deft and fluid brushwork. He described the texture of luxurious fabrics with a light touch; sometimes he scrutinised his subjects with a contemporary detachment.
He could be critical of his patrons.
In 1907 he painted Lady Sassoon (née Aline Rothschild).
Her family disliked his portrayal; they were dissatisfied with a specific detail of the painting.
Lady Aline Sassoon, 1907 (detail)
Sargent claimed ironically “A portrait is a picture in which there is just a tiny little something not quite right about the mouth”.
As well as his lavish portraits, Sargent was a prolific and versatile painter of landscapes and other subjects.
Glacier Stream – The Simplon. c1909
He travelled extensively in Europe and North America, recording his experiences in over 2,000 watercolours, as well as oil paintings. He was often accompanied on his travels by his three nieces, who appear in a number of his pictures.
The Lady with the Umbrella was one of many depictions of his niece Rose-Marie.
She was the cover-girl of the exhibition of Sargent’s watercolours at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2017.
The Lady with the Umbrella, 1911. (detail)
Rose-Marie married a French art historian who was killed in action in 1914. She devoted the war years to nursing blinded soldiers at a hospital in Reuilly.
On Good Friday 1918, Rose-Marie too was killed. Attending a concert in Paris, she and 92 others died in a German bombardment.
This event was instrumental in Sargent becoming an official war artist in July of the same year. While kept at a distance from the action, he painted many watercolours while researching for his monumental oil painting Gassed,completed in March the following year. It shows two lines of soldiers, their eyes bandaged, being guided along duckboards by medical orderlies.
Another group of soldiers is glimpsed between the legs of the column, playing football in the evening sun, perhaps as a note of optimism for the future.
Gassed is in the Imperial War Museum’s collection.
Another death in Paris
The exhibition in Stockholm provided a second opportunity to meet Doctor Pozzi, first encountered in Amsterdam.
Pozzi was a highly respected gynaecologist who was shot to death in his Paris home by a dissatisfied patient.
The picture’s caption in Stockholm revealed an intriguing detail: the patient in question was a man.
Venice is currently celebrating the 500th anniversary of the painter’s birth, in 1518 or 1519. Almost all his major works remain in his home city, spread among 29 locations.
I imagined that the exhibition The Young Tintoretto at the Accademia was going to be a rerun of the one at the Musée du Luxembourg seen earlier this year in Paris, but it ranged wider. The highlight was his breakthrough work, nearly 18 feet across, “The Miracle of the Slave,” from 1548.
St Mark plunges earthwards, smashing the instruments of torture being used on a slave as punishment for worshipping him.
“The Miracle of the Slave” – detail
A massive crowd of onlookers cranes to see the victim, and the debris scattered around his unconscious body.
Jacopo Tintoretto was renowned for the speed at which he worked. He turned this to his advantage when he was invited to submit a design for a centrepiece for the ceiling of the magnificent Scuola Grande di San Rocco, in competition with three or four of the best painters in Venice.
When the time came to unveil his sketch, he revealed a finished painting, and cleverly offered it as a “gift to San Rocco”, knowing that the Scuola would thus be obliged to accept it.
“San Rocco in glory”
Also in the Scuola di San Rocco is his panoramic “Crucifixion”, completed in 1565. The tranquil figure of Christ looks down on the seething turmoil of soldiers and executioners below, in an unusual moment of stillness. At 40 feet across, it’s one of the largest oil paintings ever made.
“The Crucifixion”, Scuola di San Rocco
Tintoretto admired his contemporary Michelangelo (who spent time on Giudecca) and his work anticipates the drama of Caravaggio and the Baroque. His freely executed paintings are dramatically lit depictions of muscular bodies in turbulent motion, often plunging through the air or writhing in torment. Jean-Paul Sartre described him as “the first film director in history”.
Tintoretto lived and worked in a house in Cannaregio near the Madonna dell’ Orto church, where three more of his giant canvasses hang, and where he is buried.
Tintoretto’s major paintings have rarely been seen outside his home city, but in March 2019 the National Gallery of Art in Washington will present a major exhibition“Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice”
After feasting on Tintoretto, we needed dinner. Four, in fact, which will be the subject of the next post….
Sardines and soft-shell crabs ‘in saor’ at Alle Testiere
