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Jacopo Robusti, called Tintoretto (Venice, 1518- Venice 1594)
Study of a Male Nude Reclining and Reworking of an Arm
Circa 1549
© R.M.N.
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Jacopo Robusti, called Tintoretto (Venice, 1518- Venice 1594)
Study of a Male Nude Reclining and Reworking of an Arm
Circa 1549
Black chalk heightened with white gouache on gray-blue paper
H. 25.5 cm; W. 41.7 cm
Filippo Baldinucci collection (vol. IV, p. 65), Francesco Saverio Baldinucci collection, his son, Pandolfo Pandolfini collection, Camillo Pandolfini collection, Roberto Pandolfini collection, Angiolo Pandolfini collection, Anna Eleonora Pandolfini collection (wife of Filippo Strozzi), Eleonora Teresa Pandolfini collection, purchased by intervention of Filippo Strozzi, on account of the painter François-Xavier Fabre, 1806
INV5382
Prints and Drawings
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| Mancini Federica |
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Study of a Male Nude Reclining and Reworking of an Arm |
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This is a preparatory study of a dead figure in the painting of Saint George and the Dragon, which resides in the National Gallery in London. The style places it in Tintoretto's early period, but he had already stopped using life models. The drawing nevertheless demonstrates his skill in foreshortening and his treatment of light. It also bears testimony to the greatness of this unparalleled artist.
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Of saints and the dead
The dead, reclining figure demonstrates a theme that would become a constant in the artist's drawings work after 1549. The recurring motifs, like the muscular and shapely bust and articulated joints, define a veritable typology that Tintoretto would apply with exceptional expressive force in his preparatory studies of diverse personalities. The secondary role of the lifeless man in the final composition is revealed by the brusque treatment of the forms. Brief foreshortenings enhance the face, and the expanse of the body emerges due to the contrast between light and dark. The preparatory aspect of the drawing can be seen from the fact that the artist did not hesitate to rework the left arm at the bottom of the drawing. The descriptive liveliness is not the least diminished by the rapidity and certainty of the stroke, which makes this drawing a complete and definitive work ready to be converted into a painting.
Macabre invention
The insertion of the lifeless figure into the iconography of Saint George slaying the dragon is a practice that started in Venice, and is due to Vittore Carpaccio, a first-rate artist of the early sixteenth century. He was the first to use it in his version of the same theme now in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, where several depictions of the dead were on display. Robusti decided upon only one - that developed in the piece in the Louvre. The drawing, as well as the painting, have yet to be precisely dated. The most recent proposal places it circa 1549. At that time, Tintoretto had developed his own language without, however, departing from the traditional techniques: black chalk on a tinted ground was caracteristic of the Venetian milieu. The Nude Male Reclining is all the more significant among the works of Tintoretto for being one of the rare drawings that can be unambiguously associated with a painting.
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Tietze Hans, Tintoretto. The paintings and drawings, New York, Phaidon publishers, 1948, p. 585.
Rossi Paola, I Disegni di Jacopo Tintoretto, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1975, p. 51.
Rearick William R., in Le Siècle de Titien : l'âge d'or de la peinture à Venise, Paris, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1993, pp. 585-586, n 238.
Forcione Varena, in Réserves : les suspens du dessin, Paris, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1995-1996, n 1.
Rearick William R., Il Disegno veneziano del Cinquecento, Milano, Electa, 2001, p. 120.
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Prints and Drawings : 
