Page of The Supper at Emmaus 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 Supper at Emmaus

1542-43
Oil on canvas, 156 x 212 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Tintoretto began his career as one of Titian's pupils and was later much influenced by Parmigianino and Michelangelo, but his own art, dramatic and animated, passionate and visionary, kept a highly individual note that was in many respects totally original.

The Supper at Emmaus is considered by experts to have been painted in about 1540, when he was a young man. Unlike his paintings of the Last Supper - a frequent subject of his later years - this painting is a more balanced composition in the Renaissance style, with the figures arranged parallel to the picture plane. The figures are relatively large and statuesque, and there is not such effective use of contrasting light and shade or spatial arrangement as in the more mature works. It is primarily by means of gestures and vigorous poses that the painter conveys the dramatic and tense atmosphere inherent in the scene.