Artwork

St Augustine healing the paralytics, after Tintoretto’s painting in the Museo Civico, Vicenza

St Augustine healing the paralytics, after Tintoretto’s painting in the Museo Civico, Vicenza is an unspecified painting by Unknown. It dates from 1649 and is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst. This drawing replicates a composition by Tintoretto depicting St.

About this work

Overview

This drawing replicates a composition by Tintoretto depicting St. Augustine’s miraculous healing of paralytics. Executed around 1649, it resides in the Museum of Ethnography. The sheet functions as a rapid visual notation rather than a polished tableau, employing swift, unmodulated lines to capture the episode’s urgency and collective agitation.

Subject & Meaning

The scene illustrates the moment St. Augustine restores mobility to afflicted supplicants. Bodies writhe, limbs stretch toward the saint, and musicians accompany the tumult. The drawing condenses the narrative into a single, surging instant, emphasizing the miraculous transformation through physical and emotional upheaval rather than doctrinal exposition.

Technique & Style

The artist deploys loose, overlapping contours on a light ground, omitting color and tonal modulation. Figures are rendered through abbreviated strokes, privileging gesture and spatial compression over anatomical precision. This approach aligns with preparatory studies, where immediacy of observation supersedes finished detail.

History & Provenance

Created as a copy after Tintoretto’s painting in Vicenza’s Museo Civico, the sheet likely served as a studio exercise or aide-mémoire. Its subsequent inclusion in the Museum of Ethnography’s holdings suggests a shift in curatorial focus, where the work’s documentary value outweighs its original function.

Context

Mid-seventeenth-century artists frequently engaged with earlier Venetian models, particularly Tintoretto’s dynamic compositions. Such drawings circulated within workshops, allowing practitioners to internalize compositional strategies and figural arrangements. The sketch’s energetic shorthand reflects broader Baroque preoccupations with movement and theatricality.