Jacopo Robusti (1518–1594), called Tintoretto — the “little dyer” — because his father was a dyer by trade, was born in Venice. Tintoretto, who studied for a short time with Titian and then with Schiavone, admired the color of Titian and the drawing of Michelangelo. Tintoretto's intention was to combine color and drawing to create a new form of art. His personal, dramatic and imaginative painting was to become increasingly Mannerist in style as it grew more and more fluid through the years. He painted portraits, classical or mythological works, and religious canvases using Old Testament themes and subjects. His portraits are restrained and intimate, and glowing with color. His classical works are distinguished by their grace and by the dramatic elements in his poetic conceptions.

Tintoretto's inventive genius shows best, however, in the many paintings he created to decorate the Palace of the Dogs, various Venetian churches, the Scuolo della Trinita, and the Scuolo di San Rocco. In these enormous compositions, some of them thirty feet long, he created mysterious scenes full of unearthly light, placed in realistic historical landscapes or elaborate court interiors-all crowded with figures in extraordinary positions, carefully dressed in textured fabrics. In his great canvases on the life of Christ for the Scuolo di San Rocco, Tintoretto's personal vision reached its culmination.

In an explosive and passionate expression of the inherent drama of the story, Tintoretto reveals himself as both realist and dreamer. Striking effects are achieved through foreshortened perspective, multiple sources of light, and human figures-exalted, tormented, or struggling with the forces of nature and the spirit. His separation from traditional Renaissance concepts strongly influenced the Mannerists who were to follow.