TINTORETTO
(b. 1518, Venezia, d. 1594, Venezia)

Allegory of Truth

c. 1564
Oil on canvas, 90 x 190 cm
Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice

The sixteen allegorical figures around the central painting on the ceiling of the Sala dell'Albergo are portrayed in forced and artificial poses and attitudes of truly Mannerist origin. They were particularly studied by Tintoretto in preliminary drawings. In these allegories, the perspective-illusionistic effect presents the figures in formal solutions of flowing complexity. Truth twists her bust and every part of her body seems to spread out in the chromatic and luministic context.