item details
Overview
Iacopo Negretti, best known as Jacopo or Giacomo Palma il Giovane or simply Palma Giovane ("Young Palma"), was an Italian Mannerist painter from Venice. After Tintoretto's death (1594), Palma became Venice's dominant artist perpetuating his style. Outside Venice, he received numerous commissions in the area of Bergamo, then part of the Venetian mainland 'empire'and in Central Europe, most prominently from the connoisseur emperor Rudolph II in Prague.
Although Venetian art is traditionally seen as excelling in painting rather than drawing, Palma was no mean drawer. Palma's drawings capture the essence of Tintoretto's energy and fluidity as well as the rhythms and grace of Veronese's. As art historian James Byam Shaw has put it, "Occasionally Tintoretto may have studied a static living model; but much more often his drawings are of struggling distorted figures in violent action. . . . More detailed studies might have been more useful to himself and to his pupils in carrying out their great works; but above all the tempo of violence had to be maintained. . . . Apart from Tintoretto's own family, and certainly more important than any of them, Palma Giovane . . . in his early figure studies comes near to the Tintorettos in style and character". But Palma, though he sometimes imitated Tintoretto, who only used chalk or charcoal in quick hasty sketches, also used "pen and pale wash to great effect, imitating the method of free sketch practised so brilliantly by Paolo Veronese, who was nearer to him in age. Palma's earlier drawings in this medium have often been mistaken for Paolo's; though in the latter part of his long life, in the early decades of the seventeen century, Palma's handling of the pen became looser, his line more broken, his forms more mannered, and the influence of Paolo is less obvious".
This chalk drawing is a three-quarter length back view of male figure slightly turned so that there is a minimal profile of the face. In his right hand he holds a cup. A cloak, high collar and full sleeve are part of his attire.
See:
James Byam Shaw, "Drawing in Venice", in The Genius of Venice 1500-1600, ed. Jane Martineau and Charles Hope (New York, 1984).
Peter Tomory, Old Master Drawings from the National Collection (Wellington, 1983).
https://art.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/132858/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palma_il_Giovane
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art February 2017