Customer Reviews

Tintoretto

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This book is, hands down, the best book on the works of Tintoretto on the market. Tom Nichols is a very well respected and well published art historian in the field and this book lives up to his reputation. It has many beautiful color prints of paintings (along with some black and white) and some very useful and helpful diagrams of the Scuole di San Rocco that show where many of Tintoretto's paintings are. It is probably the most complete, up to date work about any Venetian painter that I have read.

Nichols' Tintoretto has the makings of a great work. The text presents a wealth of insights into this underappreciated painter. The biggest drawback is the book's small illustrations. Aside from the reproductions of several portraits (i.e. Portrait of Procurator Antonio Cappello, Portrait of Procurator Jacopo Soranzo) and a handful of other works (i.e. St Louis, St George, and the Princess), the plates are disappointingly small. This is particularly problematic because Tintoretto's works in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco were painted on a large scale. It is impossible to appreciate Tintoretto's technique or the details in larger works because the reproductions are so small. Tintoretto deserves better. Unfortunately, this is one of only a handful of available works on the great Venetian master.

Tintoretto is an artist that is frequently overlooked, even by me, an avid reader and viewer of art. After being overwhelmed by his works in Venice I sought out a book to help me understand him more. This book was very satisfying in that the author analyses not only the painter, but puts him in the context of 16th century Venice. There are few books in English about Tintoretto; this is an excellent one.