Description
This altarpiece dating from c. 1570/75 was painted by Tintoretto alone, without the help of his studio. The representation of Mary with a crown of stars on the sickle of the moon as the Woman of the Apocalypse and the Immaculate Conception, appearing to the evangelists as if in a vision, is typical of the Counter-Reformation veneration of Mary.
Tintoretto, born Jacopo Robusti was an Italian painter and a notable exponent of the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed with which he painted and the unprecedented boldness of his brushwork. Because of his phenomenal energy in painting, he was called Il Furioso ("The Furious One"). His work is characterized by muscular figures, dramatic gestures, and a bold use of perspective, in a Mannerist style.
Tintoretto had very few students; His two sons and Maerten de Vos from Antwerp were among them. His son's Domenico Tintoretto frequently helped his father in the preliminary work of large paintings. He himself painted many works, many of them on a large scale. They would be considered mediocre at best and, coming from Tintoretto's son, they are disappointing. In any case, he must be considered a considerable pictorial practitioner in his own way. There are reflections of Tintoretto in the Spanish Renaissance Greek painter El Greco, who probably saw Tintoretto's work during a stay in Venice.