Penitent Magdalen

In its relatively simplification of Tintoretto’s style and incipient naturalism, Palma’s became the dominant style of religious painting in the Veneto in the last quarter of the century. His devotional pictures were preceded by numerous studies in which motifs, their relative positions, even individual gestures under-went minute variations. While not directly preparatory, this rendering of the penitent Magdalene is typical of such studies, related in subject to at least two paintings, and suggestive of their repertory nature. Its hasty brushwork, bristly line, and rather garish hue bespeak a confidence and delight in this Venetian equivalent of Central Italian disegno.