There was a fantastic moment in the Prado that continues to stay with me. The current Tintoretto show goes down the main concourse of the museum. All along the way there are doorways to the main collection that are roped off, but still open. It provides you the chance to compare and contrast. My favorite sight occurred about halfway through. There is a chance to compare a fantastic Last Supper from 1563-64 by Tintoretto with Velazquez’s Baroque masterpiece Las Meninas. Tintoretto’s unfolds like a movie, different times, different camera angles and different light sources all play out across the canvas. There are moments of exquisitely convincing realism – a chair has fallen and pushes into our space – a figure in the foreground pushes across the table top – other figures reach in out of the action causing the space and drama going on at the table to swirl and flow – to the side he has painted a stunning trump l’oeil of a book and clothing thrown over a low chair – it humanizes the un-reality of god having dinner. T paints these props from hard angles and manages to make the scene feel as if it actually works in the same space – though they never exist together. The far background feels like an after thought – thrown in like the kitchen sink - suddenly the painting studio opens into the flat abstract space of an allegorical Venetian backdrop. It is the play of these spaces - both natural and abstract - that makes the painting swirl. Velazquez’s painting shows that the lens has completely won. It is a captured moment in time, but composed like a director might – you can practically see the tape on the floor. Rather than a convergence of times it is all at once, one symbolic moment captured in a flash. This painting unfolds front to back. The very first figure is a dog trying to sleep as a small boy is nudging his back – the painting unfolds upwards and backwards from there – princess, court, canvas, painter, mirror and door. In the further background is a figure lit in the doorway and casting us back to the front. Unlike T’s flat abstraction behind the scene – Velzaquez’s distant figure casts us back into the scene. I’ll forego further analysis and refer you to Foucault’s famous tract. The painting is vertical – done in the altarpiece fashion – a link to the history of church painting and a further link to Caravaggio and his reformation of painting.
Both paintings involve the viewer in the depictions, but they do it differently. Tintoretto includes us as the audience – he has opened the stage to our viewing existence - he acknowledges our involvement. It's space is compellingly un-real, but alive with our presence. Velazquez makes us a part of the actual painting – we are involved like we are standing there in the room - we are between the painter and the royal personages behind us. It is the difference of the lens. Painting has become more about capturing the day-to-day experience, the studio and the insinuation of the painter himself. Drama has become located in the everyday existence of the life of the painter – something Tintoretto was doing for painting 100 years before. Additiionally the looseness of the paint handling by both of these artists is also telling. I like to think that the painterly line of it is Tintoretto-Caravaggio-Velazquez, loose-tight-loose. Velazquez finds the power of Caravaggio’s lens and combines it with Tintoretto’s painterly practice. It is an affirmation of the power of expression and a reworking of Venetian visual primacy.

What a great experience - for any painter - to have the opportunity to see and compare these great paintings! Both of these painters were pushing the boundaries of their practice, coming to terms with their own times and opening doors for those that followed. Here I am a few centuries later getting a chance to see, understand and use their insights. I am very lucky indeed!