The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (478 page)
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Tiffany , Louis Comfort
(1848–1933)
. American designer, interior decorator, and architect, his country's most famous exponent of the
Art Nouveau
style. He was born in New York, the son of a prosperous jeweller, and spent virtually all his career there. His initial training was as a painter, but in the 1870s he turned more to the decorative arts and founded an interior decorating business in 1879. Tiffany became famous above all for his highly distinctive glass vases and lamps, but until about 1900 his firm was better known for stained glass and mosaic work (it did interiors for many socially prominent New Yorkers as well as for clubs). Most of his architectural work, including his own mansion on Long Island, has been destroyed, but the loggia of the main entrance of his masterpiece, Laurelton Hall (1903–5), has been installed in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Tiffany was also an art patron and established a foundation that provided study and travel grants for students.
. American designer, interior decorator, and architect, his country's most famous exponent of the
Art Nouveau
style. He was born in New York, the son of a prosperous jeweller, and spent virtually all his career there. His initial training was as a painter, but in the 1870s he turned more to the decorative arts and founded an interior decorating business in 1879. Tiffany became famous above all for his highly distinctive glass vases and lamps, but until about 1900 his firm was better known for stained glass and mosaic work (it did interiors for many socially prominent New Yorkers as well as for clubs). Most of his architectural work, including his own mansion on Long Island, has been destroyed, but the loggia of the main entrance of his masterpiece, Laurelton Hall (1903–5), has been installed in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Tiffany was also an art patron and established a foundation that provided study and travel grants for students.
Tinguely , Jean
(1925–91).
Swiss sculptor and experimental artist. Tingueley's work was concerned primarily with movement and the machine, satirizing technological civilization. His boisterous humour was most fully demonstrated in his autodestructive works, which turned
Kinetic art
into
Performance art
. The most famous was
Homage to New York
, which was presented at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, on 17 March 1960, but failed to destroy itself as programmed and caused a fire. The object was constructed of an old piano and other junk. Tinguely was an innovator not only in his combination of Kineticism with the
Expressionism
of
Junk
sculpture, but also in the impetus he gave to the principle of spectator participation, as in his
Rotozazas
, in which the spectator plays ball with the machine. His most famous work (done in collaboration with Niki de
Saint Phalle
) is the exuberant Beaubourg Fountain (1980) outside the
Pompidou Centre
in Paris, featuring fantastic mechanical birds and beasts that spurt water in all directions.
Swiss sculptor and experimental artist. Tingueley's work was concerned primarily with movement and the machine, satirizing technological civilization. His boisterous humour was most fully demonstrated in his autodestructive works, which turned
Kinetic art
into
Performance art
. The most famous was
Homage to New York
, which was presented at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, on 17 March 1960, but failed to destroy itself as programmed and caused a fire. The object was constructed of an old piano and other junk. Tinguely was an innovator not only in his combination of Kineticism with the
Expressionism
of
Junk
sculpture, but also in the impetus he gave to the principle of spectator participation, as in his
Rotozazas
, in which the spectator plays ball with the machine. His most famous work (done in collaboration with Niki de
Saint Phalle
) is the exuberant Beaubourg Fountain (1980) outside the
Pompidou Centre
in Paris, featuring fantastic mechanical birds and beasts that spurt water in all directions.
Tino di Camaino
(
c.
1285–1337)
. Sienese sculptor, chiefly of tombs, active in Pisa, Florence, and Naples, as well as his native city. He probably trained with Giovanni
Pisano
, but his style was more calm and reserved, with an imposing block-like massiveness. His early career was spent in Pisa and Siena, but his chief works are in Florence (where he worked 1321–4) and Naples (where he worked from 1324 until his death). In Florence his work included the tomb of Bishop Orso in the cathedral—possibly the earliest example of the seated effigy. In Naples, where he is known to have been in touch with
Giotto
, who was court painter there at the time, and with the Sienese painter Pietro
Lorenzetti
, his work included tabernacled tombs for the Angevin court (e.g. for Queen Mary of Hungary in Sta Maria Donnaregina). He somewhat modified his own rigorous style in the direction of the more decorative grace of the
Gothic
style, but none the less his influence was significant as one of the Tuscan artists who carried the new northern developments to the southern parts of Italy.
c.
1285–1337)
. Sienese sculptor, chiefly of tombs, active in Pisa, Florence, and Naples, as well as his native city. He probably trained with Giovanni
Pisano
, but his style was more calm and reserved, with an imposing block-like massiveness. His early career was spent in Pisa and Siena, but his chief works are in Florence (where he worked 1321–4) and Naples (where he worked from 1324 until his death). In Florence his work included the tomb of Bishop Orso in the cathedral—possibly the earliest example of the seated effigy. In Naples, where he is known to have been in touch with
Giotto
, who was court painter there at the time, and with the Sienese painter Pietro
Lorenzetti
, his work included tabernacled tombs for the Angevin court (e.g. for Queen Mary of Hungary in Sta Maria Donnaregina). He somewhat modified his own rigorous style in the direction of the more decorative grace of the
Gothic
style, but none the less his influence was significant as one of the Tuscan artists who carried the new northern developments to the southern parts of Italy.
Tintoretto
(Jacopo Robusti )
(Jacopo Robusti )
(1518–94).
Venetian painter. His nickname derives from his father's profession of dyer (
tintore
). Although he was prolific and with
Veronese
the most successful Venetian painter in the generation after
Titian's
death, little is known of his life. He is said to have trained very briefly with Titian , but the style of his immature works suggests that the may also have studied with
Bonifazio Veronese
, Paris
Bordone
, or
Schiavone
. Almost all of his life was spent in Venice and most of his work is still in the churches or other buildings for which it was painted. He appears to have been unpopular because he was unscrupulous in procuring commissions and ready to undercut his competitors. By 1539 he was working independently, but the little that is known of his early work suggests that he was not precocious. The first work in which he announced a distinctive voice is
The Miracle of the Slave
(Accademia, Venice, 1548), in which many of the qualities of his maturity, particularly his love of foreshortening, begin to appear. To help him with the complex poses he favoured, Tintoretto used to make small wax models which he arranged on a stage and experimented on with spotlights for effects of light and shade and composition. This method of composing explains the frequent repetition in his works of the same figures seen from different angles. He was a formidable draughtsman and, according to
Ridolfi
, he had inscribed on his studio wall the motto ‘The drawing of
Michelangelo
and the colour of Titian’. However, he was very different in spirit from either of his avowed models—more emotive, using vivid exaggerations of light and movement. His drawings, unlike Michelangelo's detailed life studies, are brilliant, rapid notations, bristling with energy, and his colour is more sombre and mystical than Titian's.
Tintoretto's greatest works are the vast series of paintings he did for the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice from 1565 to 1587– scenes from the life of Christ in the upper hall and scenes from the life of the Virgin in the lower hall. The complicated scheme was probably not conceived by Tintoretto himself, but he interpreted it with a vividness and economy of colour and detail that give a wonderful cohesion to the whole scheme. Its personal conception of the sacred story overwhelmed
Ruskin
, who devoted eloquent pages to it, and Henry James wrote of the stupendous
Crucifixion
(1565): ‘Surely no single picture in the world contains more of human life; there is everything in it, including the most exquisite beauty.’ The unorthodox rough brushwork of such paintings incurred the censure of
Vasari
, but later generations recognized it as a means of heightening the drama and tension. As well as religious works, Tintoretto painted mythological scenes and he was also a fine portraitist, particularly of old men (a self-portrait in old age is in the Louvre). Some of the weaker portraits that go under his name may be the product of his large workshop. His son
Domenico
(
c.
1560–1635) became his foreman and is said to have painted many portraits, although none can be attributed to him with certainty. Another son,
Marco
(1561–1637), and a daughter,
Marietta
(
c.
1556–90), were among his other assistants. The later paintings can thus be divided into those which are largely studio productions on the one hand and the visionary inspirations from Tintoretto's own hand on the other. A prime example of the latter is
The Last Supper
(S. Giorgio Maggiore , Venice, 1592–4), the culmination of a lifetime's development of this subject, from the traditional frontal arrangement of his youth to this startling diagonally viewed composition. Tintoretto had great influence on Venetian painting, but the artist who most fruitfully absorbed the visionary energy and intensity of his work was El
Greco
.
Venetian painter. His nickname derives from his father's profession of dyer (
tintore
). Although he was prolific and with
Veronese
the most successful Venetian painter in the generation after
Titian's
death, little is known of his life. He is said to have trained very briefly with Titian , but the style of his immature works suggests that the may also have studied with
Bonifazio Veronese
, Paris
Bordone
, or
Schiavone
. Almost all of his life was spent in Venice and most of his work is still in the churches or other buildings for which it was painted. He appears to have been unpopular because he was unscrupulous in procuring commissions and ready to undercut his competitors. By 1539 he was working independently, but the little that is known of his early work suggests that he was not precocious. The first work in which he announced a distinctive voice is
The Miracle of the Slave
(Accademia, Venice, 1548), in which many of the qualities of his maturity, particularly his love of foreshortening, begin to appear. To help him with the complex poses he favoured, Tintoretto used to make small wax models which he arranged on a stage and experimented on with spotlights for effects of light and shade and composition. This method of composing explains the frequent repetition in his works of the same figures seen from different angles. He was a formidable draughtsman and, according to
Ridolfi
, he had inscribed on his studio wall the motto ‘The drawing of
Michelangelo
and the colour of Titian’. However, he was very different in spirit from either of his avowed models—more emotive, using vivid exaggerations of light and movement. His drawings, unlike Michelangelo's detailed life studies, are brilliant, rapid notations, bristling with energy, and his colour is more sombre and mystical than Titian's.
Tintoretto's greatest works are the vast series of paintings he did for the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice from 1565 to 1587– scenes from the life of Christ in the upper hall and scenes from the life of the Virgin in the lower hall. The complicated scheme was probably not conceived by Tintoretto himself, but he interpreted it with a vividness and economy of colour and detail that give a wonderful cohesion to the whole scheme. Its personal conception of the sacred story overwhelmed
Ruskin
, who devoted eloquent pages to it, and Henry James wrote of the stupendous
Crucifixion
(1565): ‘Surely no single picture in the world contains more of human life; there is everything in it, including the most exquisite beauty.’ The unorthodox rough brushwork of such paintings incurred the censure of
Vasari
, but later generations recognized it as a means of heightening the drama and tension. As well as religious works, Tintoretto painted mythological scenes and he was also a fine portraitist, particularly of old men (a self-portrait in old age is in the Louvre). Some of the weaker portraits that go under his name may be the product of his large workshop. His son
Domenico
(
c.
1560–1635) became his foreman and is said to have painted many portraits, although none can be attributed to him with certainty. Another son,
Marco
(1561–1637), and a daughter,
Marietta
(
c.
1556–90), were among his other assistants. The later paintings can thus be divided into those which are largely studio productions on the one hand and the visionary inspirations from Tintoretto's own hand on the other. A prime example of the latter is
The Last Supper
(S. Giorgio Maggiore , Venice, 1592–4), the culmination of a lifetime's development of this subject, from the traditional frontal arrangement of his youth to this startling diagonally viewed composition. Tintoretto had great influence on Venetian painting, but the artist who most fruitfully absorbed the visionary energy and intensity of his work was El
Greco
.
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