The large Paradise, which Ruskin distinguishes from The Paradise of Tintoretto, is 700cm x 2200cm. It was commissioned for the Chamber of the Great Council of the Ducal Palace in Venice as a part of the restoration after the fire of 1577. Kugler, ed. Eastlake, Handbook of the History of Painting, Part One, The Italian Schools, First Edition, says that it 'contains an innumerable and disagreeable crowd of human forms; but many parts of the work display great skill, and the principal figures, Christ and the Virgin, are very dignified', and this is among the more positive comments included by Kugler and Burckhardt on Tintoretto in the revised second and third editions of Murray's Handbook of Painting in Italy.
Ruskin rejects the criticisms and at Works, 10.438 it is 'the most wonderful piece of pure, manly, and masterly oil painting in the world'. A later account at Works, 22.104 gives an enthusiastic description, and it is described at Works, 22.107 as 'by far the most precious work of art of any kind whatsoever, now existing in the world'. See Ruskin on Tintoretto.
The fact that this Paradise was at the centre of Venice in the Chamber of the Great Council is a key feature in the typological framework of The Stones of Venice, stones which 'were once, as in Eden, the garden of God' ( Works, 9.17).
Jacopo Robusti (Tintoretto) c.1518-94
Paradise 1588-90
Oil on canvas, 700x2200cm
Provenance: Commissioned for the Chamber of the Great Council of the Ducal Palace, Venice
Collection: Ducal Palace, Venice
For a reproduction of this artistic work, please consult: Bernari, Carlo, L'opera completa del Tintoretto, (Milano: Rizzoli Editore, 1970), p.132