News flash from the late 16th century: Tintoretto was not as morose as we thought. A new chemical analysis of his works in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco — of which Henry James wrote "we shall scarcely find four walls elsewhere that enclose within a like area an equal quantity of genius"— indicates that his majestic and compelling canvases were also bright with color.

When James wrote about them in 1882, he complained of their having "turned to blackness," but subsequent cleaning lifted them only to muddy shades of brown and beige. This was in keeping with the notion of the artist as melancholic. We worried about him, because we had sort of adopted Tintoretto — my husband and I and half a dozen friends declaring ourselves the Friends of the Scuola San Rocco and sponsoring small restoration projects there. For example, when we attended a concert on the ground floor, during which a bit of plaster from one of the columns fell in my lap, we took it as A Sign and had the columns restored.

Such modest efforts, in a place where restoration giants including Save Venice and Venice in Peril have given fortunes, have been received so graciously that we are treated as family in the Scuola whenever we are in Venice. And thus it was that last month we were invited to climb five stories of scaffolding to the ceiling of the Scuola’s Sala dell’ Albergo, the room dominated by Tintoretto’s master work, his Crucifixion, and to share the excitement of new discoveries with the Guardian Grando, the curator, the artworks superintendent and the hands-on restorers.

One discovery is already on display: With infrared lighting, a ceiling painting of an angel revealed that Tintoretto had drawn the naked body before adding the robes. But the wildest discovery will never be seen. It turns out that those muddy colors were neither original nor attributable to dirt, but the result of the particular pigments he used having permanently turned. He painted pale blue skies, pink angels and freely used lapis blue and emerald green.

The curator considered this a mystery solved. As she said,  the Venetian scuole — the citizen’s civic and religious centers — vied with one another to be the most gorgeous and opulent, and it seemed odd that the most important scuola of all would choose to be somber.

Restoration law forbids adding to an historic work, so those colors will never return. But now we have Photoshop. At least on disc, we were shown the dazzlingly bright canvases as the perhaps-not-so-depressed Tintoretto had created them. It is rather a relief to think of him as not being altogether mopey as he produced so much pleasure for posterity.             

The Crucifixion: Jacopo Tintoretto