How valid is the claim that Tintoretto sought to combine the disegno of Michelangelo and the colorito of Titian in his work?

How valid is the claim that Tintoretto sought to combine the disegno of Michelangelo and the colorito of Titian in his work?

Emulation has long been recognized as a major creative stimulus, but there has recently been increased interest in rivalry, on view, for example, in the 1999 landmark show "Matisse and Picasso"--and again this coming spring in "Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice" at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the first exhibition to took at the three Venetian giants entirely through the lens of their complex, at times fierce competition. The fifty-six paintings in the show, which is co-organized with the Musee du Louvre in Paris and includes many loans from Venetian churches and private collections, will offer carefully selected comparisons from all areas of their work. Curated by Frederick Ilchman, Jean Habert, and Vincent Delieuvin, the exhibition promises to dispense irrevocably with the passive notion of influence, since the three painters never engaged one another without a hidden agenda.

The psychological dynamics among the three protagonists of sixteenth-century Venetian painting are on view front and center in The Wedding Feast at Cana, 1562-63, Paolo Veronese's huge and colorful depiction (permanently installed in the Louvre and hence not in the show) of the debauched banquet at which Jesus turned water into wine. The foreground features a group portrait of the artists playing music. Gracefully playing a riddle in the left foreground, Veronese places himself at a table across from Titian, who engagingly works his string bass. While their inward-leaning profiles affiliate the two, the table nevertheless keeps them at a respectful distance from each other, and it is the lusty old man who dominates the scene, with his ...