Paradise

Paradise is one of the most monumental works of Venetian painting: a large canvas that fills the main wall of the Great Council hall in the Doge's Palace in Venice, where the government of the republic met. Tintoretto conceived it as a heavenly vision crowded with saints, angels, evangelists and some five hundred figures. From the centre of the scene a path of light opens towards the Empyrean, along which the souls of the just rise with the help of angels while God's grace descends upon the Doge. At the axis of that light stands a semi-veiled archangel, and above, the Holy Spirit appears as a dove. The celestial hierarchy is followed closely: the evangelists sit in a semicircle beneath the main scene, and the saints are arranged in the order in which they appear in church litanies.

The work has a complicated history. In 1577 a fire destroyed part of the palace, including a fourteenth-century fresco by Guariento showing the Coronation of the Virgin, which had hung behind the doge's throne. A competition was held to replace it. Paolo Veronese and Francesco Bassano were chosen, but Veronese died before work began and the commission passed to Tintoretto. He submitted two sketches, both different from the final version, and the execution was largely carried out by his workshop under the direction of his son Domenico.

The change of focus is notable. The Annunciation from the earlier fresco disappears, and Christ, as judge and source of light, takes the central place, although the Virgin had to remain to respect the theme of paradise. The crowd of angels and saints recalls the Last Judgment and served as a warning to those deliberating beneath it that their actions and morals would have consequences.

Painter

Jacopo Tintoretto

Date

1588

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

9 × 23 cm

Museum

Doge's Palace, Venice

Movement

Mannerism, Venetian school

Genre

religious art

Depicts

Annunciation, angel, Mary

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