Paradise
Jacopo Tintoretto, with Domenico Tintoretto and workshop (1518 to 1594) · 1588 to 1592
Behind the Doge's throne, filling the entire end wall of the largest room in the palace, is a painting so big that it was long described as the largest canvas in the world. Hundreds of figures rise in tiers of cloud toward Christ and the Virgin at the top centre, with angels, apostles, prophets, saints and the blessed swirling around them. The Great Council met in this room, more than a thousand nobles at a time, and when they looked toward the throne they saw heaven itself arranged in ranks above their head of state, a reminder that the Republic claimed to govern under divine protection.
Stand in the middle of the hall and let your eyes settle. The composition is built in curving bands that spiral inward toward the light at the top, so that the crowd never feels static. Tintoretto painted it in sections in a nearby building, the Scuola della Misericordia, and the pieces were sewn together and finished in place. His son Domenico and a large workshop did much of the execution, which explains why some passages are more brilliant than others. Look at the flashes of white and gold on the drapery and the faces lit from below, typical of Tintoretto's rapid, dramatic brush.
The painting replaced a fresco of the same subject by Guariento, destroyed in the fire of 1577; fragments of the older work survive elsewhere in the palace. A competition for the commission involved Veronese and Francesco Bassano, but after Veronese died in 1588 the task fell to the elderly Tintoretto, who is said to have asked to be paid whatever the state thought fair. He was in his seventies when it was finished. One memorable detail is the way the Archangel Michael, near the centre, holds the scales of justice, pointing to the role of the Council as the supreme court of the Republic.
Did You Know? Tintoretto asked no fixed fee for the Paradise and told the Senate to pay him what they liked, a gesture that helped him win the commission.
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