Overview
The Venetian master Tintoretto marshaled the unstable forces of nature to heighten the drama of this scene from John's Gospel; the wind that fills the sail and bends the mast also agitates the sea and sky, and the rocky waves meet the low clouds that blow onto the land. Christ's outstretched arm draws Peter like a magnet, the charge between them creating a dynamic link between the center of the picture and the left foreground. Tintoretto has broken all forms into multiple planes, splintering the light, and frosting the edges with a brush loaded with dry, lead-white oil paint. This use of a thick, white impasto to accent the highlights and as a ghostly shorthand, as in the grassy shore at Christ's feet, is a hallmark of Tintoretto's bravura style.
Too wild and improvisatory to find a real following among his compatriots in Venice, Tintoretto's bold expressions instead fired the imagination of one kindred temperament: El Greco, who studied there before moving to Spain. So close in style and spirit was El Greco's art that, earlier in this century, some experts believed that he, and not Tintoretto, had painted the Christ at the Sea of Galilee.
Provenance
Count Joseph Gallotti.[1] (Durlacher Brothers, New York).[2] Arthur Sachs [1880-1975], New York, by 1925;[3] sold March 1943 through (Jacques Seligmann & Co., New York) and (Moses & Singer, New York) to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1952 to NGA.
Exhibition History
- 1927
- Loan to display with permanent collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1927.
- 1932
- Loan to display with permanent collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1932-1933.
- 1933
- A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, 1933, no. 135, repro., as Christ on the Lake of Galilee.
- 1934
- Landscape Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1934, no. 5, as Christ Walking on the Water.
- 1935
- Loan to display with permanent collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1935-1938.
- 1938
- Exhibition of Venetian Painting From the Fifteenth Century through the Eighteenth Century, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, June-July 1938, no. 66, repro., as Christ on the Sea at Galilee.
- 1938
- Religious Art, an exhibition of fourteenth, fifteenth,sixteenth, and seventeenth-century paintings; sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, metalwork, rosaries, textiles, stained glass and prints, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1938-1939, no. 35, repro.
- 1938
- Venetian Paintings of the 15th & 16th Centuries, M. Knoedler and Company, New York, April 1938, no. 16, repro., as Christ on the Sea of Galilee.
- 1939
- A Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Jacopo Robusti, il Tintoretto, 1519-1594, Durlacher Brothers, New York, February-March 1939, no. 5, as Christ on the Sea of Galilee.
- 1939
- Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculptures from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, May-October 1939, no. 377, repro.
- 1942
- Loan to display with permanent collection, Society of Liberal Arts, Joslyn Memorial (now Joslyn Art Museum), Omaha, 1942-1943.
- 1946
- Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 825.
- 1979
- The Golden Century of Venetian Painting, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1979-1980, no. 36, repro.
- 1988
- Loan to display with permanent collection, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen, 1988-1989.
Bibliography
- 1901
- Venturi, Adolfo. Storia dell’arte italiana. 11 vols. Milan, 1901-1940: 9, part 4(1929):332, repro.
- 1925
- Borenius, Tancred. “A Seascape by Tintoretto.” Apollo 2 (July–December 1925): 249.
- 1931
- Venturi, Lionello. Pitture italiane in America. Milan, 1931: no. 411.
- 1932
- Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: A List of the Principal Artists and their Works with an Index of Places. Oxford, 1932: 562, 678, as Tintoretto.
- 1933
- Venturi, Lionello. Italian Paintings in America. Translated by Countess Vanden Heuvel and Charles Marriott. 3 vols. New York and Milan, 1933: 3:no. 555, as Tintoretto.
- 1939
- Borenius, Tancred. "An Exhibition of Venetian Painting." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 74 (1939): 138, as Tintoretto.
- 1942
- Bercken, Erich von der. Die Gemälde des Jacopo Tintoretto. Munich, 1942: 88, 118, fig. 216, as Tintoretto.
- 1944
- Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 74, color repro., as Christ Walking on the Sea.
- 1944
- Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 55, repro., as Christ Walking on the Sea.
- 1945
- Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 130, repro.
- 1948
- Tietze, Hans. Tintoretto: The Paintings and Drawings. New York, 1948: 381, as El Greco.
- 1950
- Chatzidakis, Manolis. “O Domenikos Theotokopoulos kai e kretiké zographiké.”
Kretika Chronika 4 (1950): 371–440, as El Greco.
- 1951
- Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 98-99, repro.
- 1954
- ietze, Hans. Treasures of the Great National Galleries. New York, 1954: 15, 125, pl. 205 (“ascribed to Tintoretto, but may also be considered as a possible El Greco”).
- 1956
- Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 30, color repro.
- 1957
- Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Venetian School. 2 vols. London, 1957: 1:183, pl. 71, as Tintoretto.
- 1957
- Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 37.
- 1959
- Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 203, repro.
- 1960
- Shapley, Fern Rusk. Later Italian Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Six in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 32, color repro.
- 1960
- The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 25.
- 1961
- Seligman, Germain. Merchants of Art: 1880-1960, Eighty Years of Professional Collecting. New York, 1961: repro. pl. 87.
- 1962
- Wethey, Harold E. El Greco and His School. 2 vols. Princeton, 1962: 1:90, n. 113.
- 1963
- Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 158, repro.
- 1965
- Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 128.
- 1966
- Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:194, color repro.
- 1966
- Schiller, Gertrud. Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst. 6 vols. Gütersloh, 1966-1990: 3:117.
- 1968
- European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1968: 115, repro.
- 1970
- De Vecchi, Pierluigi. L’opera completa del Tintoretto. Milan, 1970: 133, no. 290, pl. 63, as Tintoretto.
- 1973
- Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI-XVIII Century. London, 1973: 52-53, fig. 92, as Tintoretto.
- 1975
- European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 340, repro.
- 1979
- Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: I:465-467, II:pl. 332, 332A
- 1979
- Sutton, Denys. “Venetian Painting of the Golden Age.” Apollo 110 (1979): 386, as Tintoretto.
- 1982
- Pallucchini, Rodolfo, and Paola Rossi. Tintoretto: le opere sacre e profane. 2 vols. Venice, 1982: 1:178-179, no. 224; 2:fig. 292, as by Tintoretto.
- 1984
- Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 228, no. 287, color repro.
- 1985
- European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 392, repro.
- 1992
- National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 104, repro.
- 1996
- Dal Pozzolo, Enrico Maria. “Rilevanze gestuali nell'opera del pittore: problemi di
metodo e legittimità interpretative.” In Jacopo Tintoretto nel quarto centenario della morte: atti del convegno internationale di studi. Edited by Paola Rossi and Lionello Puppi. Padua, 1996: 149, fig. 331, as Tintoretto.
- 1996
- Echols, Robert. "Tintoretto, Christ at the Sea of Galilee, and the Unknown Later Career of Lambert Sustris," Venezia Cinquecento VI, no. 12 (1996): 93-149.
- 2001
- Herrmann Fiore, Kristina. Paolo Veronese: la predica di Sant'Antonio ai Pesci; spunti di riflessione per una rilettura del dipinto restaurato. Rome, 2001: 36, fig. 35, as attributed to Tintoretto or Friedrich Sustris.
- 2009
- Echols, Robert, and Frederick Ilchman. “Toward a New Tintoretto Catalogue, with a Checklist of Revised Attributions and a New Chronology.” In Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del congreso internacional/Proceedings of the International Symposium, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, February 26-27, 2007. Madrid, 2009: 149, no. C90, as Lambert Sustris.
- 2010
- Cassegrain, Guillaume. Tintoret. Paris, 2010: 45, fig. 21, as Tintoretto or Lambert Sustris.