Jacopo Tintoretto, The Original Sin, During Restoration | Photo: Matteo De Fina | Courtesy the Ministry of Culture / Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

At the Gallerie dell’Accademia, a group of paintings executed by Jacopo Tintoretto between 1551 and 1552 can once again be seen as a coherent project, approaching the original configuration created for the Scuola della Santissima Trinità. The exhibition Tintoretto racconta la Genesi. Ricerca, analisi e restauro brings together three canvases now in Venice - The Creation of the Animals, The Original Sin and Cain Killing Abel - alongside Adam and Eve before the Eternal Father, on loan from the Uffizi. The project restores a sense of unity to a cycle that had long been fragmented. The exhibition follows a recent restoration campaign that recovered the clarity of surfaces altered by oxidised varnishes and accumulated deposits. Cleaning has revealed sharper contrasts, more nuanced tonal transitions and a more complex spatial construction, highlighting the experimental approach developed by Tintoretto at a crucial stage in his early career. Scientific investigation has also provided insight into the artist’s creative process. Technical analysis has identified compositional revisions and structural planning, challenging the traditional perception of an entirely instinctive painter. Landscape emerges as an active narrative component, shaping the dramatic tension of the scenes and anticipating solutions that would define his later work. The Genesis cycle marks one of the first moments in which Tintoretto established an independent pictorial language, redefining the relationship between figure, light and space. The restoration now allows these works to be seen with renewed clarity, offering a deeper understanding of the emergence of one of the most distinctive voices of sixteenth-century Venetian painting.

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