Page of The Stealing of the Dead Body of St Mark by TINTORETTO in the Web Gallery of Art, a searchable image collection and database of European paintings and sculptures (1100-1850)

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The Stealing of the Dead Body of St Mark

1562-66
Oil on canvas, 398 x 315 cm
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

In 1562 Tintoretto was commissioned by the Guardian Grande, Tommaso Ragnone to complete the decoration of the School of St Mark. This work relates the episode in which the Christians of Alexandria, taking advantage of a sudden hurricane, take possession of the body of the saint which was about to be burned by the pagans. The group in the foreground (where Ragnone himself is depicted bearing the head of the saint) stands out sculpturally from the vertiginous depth of the background created by the use of light and by the obsessive architectural sequence of arcades and mullioned windows which terminate in the phosphorescence of the construction outlined against a reddish sky heavy with clouds. Light assumes an elemental role in this phantasmagorical scene.