Tintoretto was an amazing Italian Mannerist painter of the Venetian school and was made one of the most important artists of the late Renaissance.
With his early training in his painting skils, he argely self-taught after this experience, Tintoretto would continue to develop his skills in part through making paintings on furniture. In Italy, at the time, there was a great demand for cassoni or ornate chests decorated with paintings, and it is here that Tintoretto is believed to have developed his distinctive approach characterized by rapidly executed loose brushwork often appearing sketch-like and, at times, incomplete. In his book, "Tintoretto: Tradition and Identity," art historian Tom Nichols writes, "In a number of small-scale paintings attributable to his earliest period, Tintoretto radically abbreviates his treatment of form, the sketchy effect being reinforced by his employment of a limited range of broken tones, close to one another on the color scale [...] Works such as these were intended to adorn furniture, and support [early biographer Carlo] Ridolfi's report that Tintoretto associated with painters of this type who peddled their wares from temporary wooden booths set up in St. Mark's Square. Ridolfi tells us that it was in this public (but professionally marginal) context that Tintoretto first learned the 'method of handling colors' particular to the cassoni painters."
Tintoretto was only known to have left Venice once to travel to Mantua, at the age of 62, in 1580. This was four years after the death of his rival, Titian, who had of all the Venetian painters, dominated the international stage. It was during this later period that Tintoretto also received a few important international commissions including an altarpiece for King Philip II of Spain and four works for the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. He also painted an increasing number of non-religious themed paintings during this time. In these later years, he also created portraits and received many commissions from the Venetian state. One of the most notable being his creation of the large-scale painting, titled Paradiso, in 1592 for the Ducal Palace.
As he neared the end of his life, Tintoretto increasingly relied on the help of his studio assistants to finish his paintings, including Paradiso. Most notable of those assistants were three of his nine children: daughter Marietta and sons Domenico and Marco. The artist was devastated when his oldest daughter, whom he lovingly nicknamed 'la Tintoretta,' died during childbirth in 1590. Just four years later, Tintoretto died fifteen days after contracting a fever. His sons would continue the work of his studio for many years, perhaps still under the guidance of those words Tintoretto had inscribed on its wall years before: Il disegno di Michelangelo e il colorito di Tiziano.
Jacopo Tintoretto left an indelible mark on 16th-century Venetian painting and beyond. His unique approach to artmaking with rapid, loose brushstrokes and strong contrasts between light and dark deeply challenged the traditional style of the iconic master Titian, Paolo Veronese, and his Venetian contemporaries. His bold compositions offered an alternative style to the hierarchal staging of the traditional Renaissance paintings. Because of this, Tintoretto is often associated with the Mannerist painters of the later Renaissance period.
