He sat back on one of the chairs and gazed at this huge helping of art [The Crucifixion, Tintoretto, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice. 1565]. It really was a mad painting, great if your idea of great painting was maximum action and maximum atmospherics on a maximum scale, which, at that moment, seemed a pretty good definition of maximum greatness. This was high concept art, all right, and there was no doubting who was the star of the show, the focus of everyone's attention. Everybody in the painting he was looking at was looking at the crucified Christ, even the two thieves who were getting crucified alongside him, even people like the guy on the horse, who was looking at something else.
G. Dyer, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (2009), 155-56
It is also one of my favourite paintings.
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