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Date : between 1580 and 1590
Material : Oil on canvas
Acquisition : Art Institute Purchase Fund (1949)
| Item 12 on 16
European Painting
Painting
Area related
Italy
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| Description |  |
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In Book One of History of Rome, Titus Livius recounted Prince Tarquin's rape of Lucretia, whose consequent suicide supposedly led the Roman people, around 510 B.C., to overthrow the monarchy and establish the Roman Republic. The misconduct of a royal prince while a guest in the home of a respected citizen produced public outrage that grew into an insurrection.
Tintoretto chose to depict Lucretia's desperate struggle against her assailant. The magnificent, all - but - naked protagonists are in violent movement : the canopy of Lucretia's bed has collapsed upon them (the fallen statue in the fore - ground served as a bedpost); her pearl necklace is in the process of falling apart; and the dagger she will use to kill herself is at her feet. Tintoretto's complex composition of two opposed diagonals, and his vibrant treatment of light, which shimmers on rich fabrics presented against a dark background, are characteristic of the incandescent style of the artist's mature period, when he was working on his cycle of paintings for the Scholar di San Rocco in Venice.
Along with Jacopo Bassano (c.1510 - 1592), Tintoretto was the leading practitioner in Venice of an expressive Mannerist style which entailed distortions of space and anatomy and the invention of complicated, refined poses. Tintoretto had a great influence on younger artists, among them El Greco (1541 - 1614), who worked in Venice for several years.
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