«Fragments of a far purer truth»: Ruskin e il paesaggio di Tintoretto

John Ruskin’s criticism of Tintoretto’s landscapes is amply represented by the descriptions of the paintings of the Scuola di San Rocco in the Venetian Index, an appendix to the third volume of the Stones of Venice. Examining the numerous passages, the paper shows how Ruskin’s comments on the rendering of Tintoretto’s landscapes, even where these are but minimal fragments of vegetation, sky, and water is invariably positive and often at odds with that reserved for the representation of the figures or the ico- nography of the paintings. The English critic’s reading, conducted on concrete impressions and judgments, dwells on the formal qualities of the paintings. In an apparently unsystematic way, he identifies a few affinities with Turner, the painter from whom his research on the modernity of landscape painting in Modern Painters had begun.