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

Jacob's Ladder

1577-78
Oil on canvas, 660 x 265 cm
Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice

This biblical episode is considered to be an allusion to the Resurrection and to the Ascension of Christ depicted in the large canvases on the walls of the Upper Hall. The swift vivid description of the ideal ladder created in the most phantasmagoric upside down perspective is extraordinarily evocative of the distance that separates Jacob down below, seen from behind against the light, from the Eternal Father who appears indistinct in the pink glows of the sky-blue highest heaven.