PAOLO VERONESE
The harmonious colour, the sense of material magnificence, and the masterly draughtsmanship of Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) are seen to the greatest advantage in his Marriage at Cana (No. 1192). He signed a contract in June 1562, to paint this large picture, which measures 21 ft. × 32 ft., for the refectory of San Giorgio Maggiore at Venice, and completed it by September 8, 1563. According to the agreement, Paolo was to receive 324 ducats, a sum equal to-day to about £200; to be fed during the time he was engaged on the work; to be repaid the cost of the materials; and to receive a pipe of wine. The picture was seized by Napoleon during his victorious campaign of 1797, and brought by road to Paris. In accordance with the terms of the Peace of Campo Formio of 1814, it should have been returned. As it had proved a very difficult matter to take it to Paris, where it had to go into the restorer’s hands, the French urged that it was too vast and too dilapidated to bear a second journey. Astonishing as it may seem to us to-day, the Italians accepted the suggestion and in exchange took Charles Le Brun’s large but mediocre Magdalene at the Feet of Jesus, perhaps because it measured 12 ft. 6 in. × 10 ft. 4 in. Le Brun’s picture now hangs in the Venice Gallery (No. 377), the Catalogue of which pointedly remarks that “the exchange is much to be regretted.”
PLATE XIII.—TITIAN
(1489?–1576)
VENETIAN SCHOOL
No. 1584.—THE ENTOMBMENT
(La Mise au Tombeau)
The dead body of the Christ is borne on a white cloth by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa. Nicodemus is seen from the back wearing a pale red tunic and a parti-coloured scarf; Joseph of Arimathæa in green robes is in profile towards the right. St. John in a red robe supports the right arm of the Christ. To the left St. Mary Magdalene, with her arms around the Virgin, gazes in profound grief at the Christ. The Virgin with clasped hands bends forward to look at her Son.
Painted in oil on canvas.
4 ft 10½ in. × 7 ft. 1 in. (1·48 × 2·15.)
Paolo Veronese’s masterly work contains no devotional feeling. The Scriptural story merely serves as a pretext for depicting a scene of Venetian festivity and material magnificence with imposing architectural background. The grouping of the figures is varied, dexterously disposed and stately, while the colour is harmonious and sparkling. The changing of the water into wine is, however, merely incidental. It is a significant fact that a work of this description, in which Art in Venice begins to trick herself out in meretricious embellishments, should have been regarded as a seemly decoration for the refectory of a convent. An additional but frankly worldly interest is imparted to the work by the introduction of a portrait of Alfonso d’Avalos (whose portrait by Titian we have already seen) as the bridegroom, on the extreme left of the composition; to his left is the bride, with the features of Eleonora of Austria. The other figures include François i., dressed in blue and wearing a curious headdress; Mary of England, sister of Henry viii. and widow of Louis xii., in yellow; the Sultan Soliman, in green, at the side of a negro prince who addresses a servant. On the left of the next figure sits Vittoria Colonna, whom Michelangelo described as “a man within a woman,” plying her toothpick! At the end of the table, speaking to a servant, is the Emperor Charles v., seen in profile and wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece. The introduction of the fool with the bells in the centre of the picture is perhaps intended to express the pomp and pleasure of the world pursued without thought of Christ, who, however, occupies the place of honour in the centre of the composition. The couple of dogs in leash, one gnawing a bone, and a cat, lying on her back as she scratches at one of the vases which hold the wine on the right of the composition, may stand for merely brutal nature.
The painter’s personal interest in the scene is depicted in the group of four artists in the foreground. Paolo himself is playing a viol; just behind him is Tintoretto with a similar instrument; while on the right are Titian, in red with a bass viol, and Bassano playing the flute. The theory put forward by Mr. Herbert Cook that Titian was born as late as 1489, and so would be seventy-four years old in 1562–63, the year in which this picture was painted, certainly seems to find corroboration in the features here given to Titian by Paolo Veronese. He certainly does not look eighty-seven years of age, as he should do if he had been born as early as 1476.
In the Catalogue sixteen pictures are assigned to Paolo Veronese. The Portrait of a Lady and a Child playing with a Dog (No. 1199) is an early work. The Disciples at Emmaus (No. 1196), which is signed “paolo veronese,” is another of the master’s imposing canvases, as also is the Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee (No. 1193), which was presented to Louis xiv. by the Venetian Republic in 1665, and was for many years hung at Versailles. This artist is also officially credited with the Burning of Sodom (No. 1187), a Holy Family, with St. George, St. Catherine, and a Male Donor (No. 1190), a Holy Family, with St. Elizabeth and St. Mary Magdalene, and a Female Donor (No. 1191), a Christ heeding Peter’s Wife’s Mother (No. 1191a), a Christ fainting under the weight of the Cross (No. 1194), a Calvary (No. 1195), and an Esther fainting before Ahasuerus (No. 1189). The Susan and the Elders (No. 1188) is a replica of a picture in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. The St. Mark crowning the Theological Virtues (No. 1197), and the Jupiter hurling Thunderbolts on Criminals (No. 1198), were originally executed as ceiling paintings for the Doge’s Palace. The Christ with the Terrestrial Globe (No. 1200) and the Portrait of a Lady in Black (No. 1201) are only studio pictures.
Little artistic ability is shown in the empty abstractions, and at times meaningless productions, of many of the late sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century Venetian artists. Felice Riccio (Il Brusasorci the Younger) (1540–1605) is given as the painter of a Holy Family (No. 1463); Alessandro Turchi (Orbetto) (1582–1648) of three pictures (Nos. 1558–1560); Sebastiano Ricci (1659?–1734) of four compositions (Nos. 1458–1461); Antonio Pellegrino (1675–1741) of an Allegory (No. 1413); Alessandro Varotari (1590–1650) of an utterly uninspired Venus and Cupid (No. 1574); and Pietro della Vecchia (1605–1678) of a dull Portrait of a Man (No. 1576).
A century later than the stupendous achievements of Tintoretto and Veronese the art of Venice had passed into decline, but a glimmer of the genius that had found expression in the gorgeously decorative art in Venice in the sixteenth century was yet to be reflected in the work of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1692–1769). His Last Supper (No. 1547) was purchased for £400 in 1877, and his sketch for the Triumph of Religion (No. 1549a) for £1200 in 1903. By him also is the Banner (No. 1549), depicting on the one side St. Martin saying Mass, and on the other The Madonna and Child. An Apparition of the Virgin to St. Jerome (No. 1548) is one of the less striking pictures in the La Caze collection.
Another decorative painter was Antonio Canale, generally known as Canaletto (1697–1768), who is well represented in the View of the Church of Santa Maria della Salute and the Grand Canal (No. 1203). The Louvre appears to contain nothing by Bernardo Bellotto (1720–1780), who is sometimes referred to as Canaletto, and is seen to the best advantage at Dresden.
Canaletto’s pupil, Francesco Guardi (1712–1793), who was born of Austrian parentage, is the painter of seven Venetian scenes: After wedding the Adriatic, the Doge embarks at the Lido on the “Bucentaur” (No. 1328); The Doge proceeds to S. Maria della Salute to commemorate the Preservation of Venice from the Plague in 1630 (No. 1329); Fête du Jeudi Gras in the Piazzetta (No. 1330); The Procession of Corpus Domini in the Piazza of S. Marco (No. 1331); The Visit of the Doge to the Church of S. Zaccharia on Easter Day (No. 1332); The Doge seated on his Throne in the Sala del Collegio (No. 1333); Coronation of the Doge (No. 1334); and a View of the Church of S. Maria della Salute (No. 1335). Guardi’s pupil, François Casanova (1739–1805), a painter of battle-pieces, worked in France; some of his pictures are hung in the French Rooms.
With Guardi we close the chapter of Venetian art which, owing to four centuries of high aspiration and magnificent achievement, came to an end later than the art of any other school of painting in Italy.