Study for the Vision of Ezekiel

Tintoretto's preparatory drawings for his later paintings at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco tend to be wispy, quick studies, more a sort of aide-mémoire or trial run for Tintoretto than a clear plan for an assistant to transfer a figure to a canvas. It is a bit ironic that Tintoretto's drawings should have become so slight at a moment when the figures of the San Rocco paintings, perhaps because of the need to paint them relatively quickly, became so large and bold. This is a study for one of the skeletons now clothed again with flesh in the Vision of Ezekiel on the ceiling of the upper room at San Rocco, although the body and legs rotate in opposite directions in the final work. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawing in Tintoretto's Venice"