Timeless Tintoretto

From 11 September 2026 to 24 January 2027, the Musée Jacquemart-André is showcasing the work of one of the leading figures of Italian Mannerism, Jacomo Robusti, known as Tintoretto (1518/19–1594). This exhibition presents, for the first time in France, a comprehensive overview of Tintoretto’s entire career and demonstrates how his artistic legacy has transcended temporal and geographic boundaries, establishing him as a key influence on 19th-century French painting.

Jacomo Robusti, nicknamed ‘Tintoretto’ in reference to his father’s trade as a dyer, established himself as a major figure in 16th-century painting. In Venice, where he remained for all his life, his ambition found fertile ground. It was in this capital of culture that his remarkably long career unfolded. Although little is known about his training, he began making a name for himself in the late 1540s with prestigious commissions such as Miracle of the Slave (1548). During the second half of the century, at the head of a large workshop, he dominated the market for large-scale decorative cycles commissioned for civic buildings, including the Doge’s Palace (the Paradise fresco, from 1588) and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco (1564–1588).

Emphasising the modernity of his art, the exhibition reveals the singularity of an artist endowed with the most incredible creative energy, and described by Vasari as ‘the most formidable mind that painting has ever known’ (1568). A complex artist who defies categorisation, Tintoretto produced a body of work that is admired and controversial in equal measure, characterised by bold compositions, dizzying perspectives, spectacular lighting effects and rapid, bold brushstrokes – the famous prestezza. Combining the sculptural drawing (disegno) of the Tuscan masters — particularly that of Michelangelo, who fascinated him — and the Venetian colorito of Titian, his rival, he brought the Renaissance in Venice to its zenith.

Bringing together some forty paintings and graphic works from public and private collections in France, Italy and elsewhere, the exhibition allows visitors to appreciate the diversity and scope of Tintoretto’s oeuvre through a number of key themes. Major religious works, such as The Miracle of St Augustine (1547–1549, Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza) and The Trinity (c. 1561–1562, Galleria Sabauda, Turin), demonstrate, for example, his ability to breathe new life into sacred subjects through dramatic interpretation.

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