PAOLO VERONESE
Paolo Veronese, though perhaps he is not to be placed on the very
highest pinnacle of the Venetian School, must be classed among
those few great painters who rose far above the level of most of his
contemporaries and who brought in a special note and flavour of his own.
His art is an independent art, and he borrows little from predecessors
or contemporaries. His free and joyous temperament gave relief at a
moment when the Venetian scheme of colour threatened to become too
sombre, and when Sebastian del Piombo, Pordenone, Titian himself, and
above all Tintoretto, were pushing chiaroscuro to extremes. Veronese
discards the deepest bronzes and mulberries and crimsons and oranges,
and finds his range among cream and rose and grey-greens. Titian
concentrated his colours and intensified his lights, Tintoretto
sacrifices colour to vivid play of light and dark, but Veronese avoids
the dark; the generous light plays all through his scenes. He has no
wish to secure strong effects but delights in soft, faded tints; old
rose and _turquoise morte_. In his colour and his subjects he is a
personification of the robust, proud, joy-loving Republic, in which, as
M. Yriarte says, a man produced his works as a tree produces its fruit.
We get very near him in those vast palaces and churches and villas,
where his heroic figures expand in the azure air, against the white
clouds, and yet he is one of the artists of the Renaissance about whom
we know least. Here and there, in contemporary biography, we come across
a mention of him and learn that he was sociable and lively, quick at
taking offence, fond of his family and anxious to do his best by them.
He was, too, very generous with his work--a great contrast in this
respect to Titian--and contracts with convents and confraternities show
that he often only stipulated for payment for bare time. Yet he was fond
of personal luxury, loved rich stuffs, horses and hounds, and, says
Ridolfi, "always wore velvet breeches."
His first masters, according to Mr. Berenson, were Badile and
Brusasorci, masters of Verona, but before he was twenty, he was away
working on his own account. His first patron was Cardinal Gonzaga, who
brought several painters from Verona to Mantua; but Mantua was no longer
what it had been in the days of Isabela d'Este, and Paolo Caliari soon
returned to his own town. Before he was twenty-three he had decorated
Villa Porti, near Vicenza, in collaboration with Zelotti, a Veronese,
portraying feasting gods and goddesses, framed in light architectural
designs in monochrome. The two painters went on to other villas, mixing
mortal and mythical figures in a happy, light-hearted medley.
Zelotti having received a commission at Vicenza, Paolo decided to seek
his fortune in Venice. The Prior of the Convent of San Sebastiano, on
the Zattere, was a Veronese, and Caliari wrote to him before arriving in
Venice in 1555. Thanks to the good Prior, who played a considerable part
in his destiny, he obtained a commission for a "Coronation of the Virgin
and four other Saints." He first painted the sacristy, but his success
was instantaneous, and many orders followed. The ceiling of the church
was devoted to the history of Esther. The whole of these paintings
are marvellously well preserved, and, inset in the carved and gilt
framework, make a _coup d'oeil_ of surprising beauty. They had an
immense effect. Every one was able to appreciate these joyous pictures
of Venice, the loveliness of her skies, the pomp of her ceremonies, the
rich Eastern stuffs and the glorious architecture of her palaces. It
was an auspicious moment for a painter of Veronese's temper; the
so-called Republic, now, more than ever, an oligarchy, was at the
height of its fortunes, redecorating was going forward everywhere, the
merchant-nobility was rich and spending magnificently, the Eastern trade
was flourishing, Venice was in all her glory. The patrons Caliari came
to work for, preferred the ceremonial to the imaginative treatment of
sacred themes, and he does not choose the tragedies of the Bible for
illustration. He paints the history of Esther, with its royal audiences,
banquets, and marriage-feasts. His Christs and Maries and Martyrs are
composed, courtly personages, who maintain a dignified calm under
misfortune, and have very little violent feeling to show.
At the time of his arrival in Venice, Palma Vecchio was just dead,
Tintoretto was absorbed by the Scuola di San Rocco, Paris Bordone was
with Francis I. As rivals, Caliari had Salviati, Bonifazio, Schiavone,
and Zelotti, all rendering homage to Titian who was eighty years old,
but still in full vigour. Titian's opinions in matters of art were
dictates, his judgment was a law. He immediately recognised Veronese's
genius, which was of a kind to appeal to him, and together with
Sansovino, who at this time was Director of Buildings to the Signoria,
he received the young painter with an approval which ensured him a good
start. Five years after Veronese's arrival he was retained to decorate
the Villa Barbaro at Maser, which is a type of those patrician
country-houses to which the Venetians were becoming more attached every
year. Daniele Barbaro, Patriarch of Aquileia, whose magnificent portrait
by Veronese is in the Pitti, was himself an artist and designed the
ceiling of the Hall of the Council of Ten. Palladio, Alessandro
Vittoria, and Veronese were associated to build him a dwelling worthy of
a Prince of the Church. In style the villa is a total contrast to the
gorgeous Venetian palaces; it is sober and simple, and well adapted to
leisure and retirement. Its white stucco walls and decorations are
devoid of gilding and colour, and the rooms adorned by Veronese's brush
show him in quite a new light. His visit to Rome did not take place till
four years later, but he has been influenced here by the feeling for the
antique, and he thinks much of line and style. He leaves on one side the
gorgeous brocades and gleaming satins, in which he usually delights, and
his nymphs are only clothed in their own beauty. And here Veronese shows
his admirable taste and discretion; his patrons, the Barbaro family, are
his friends, men and women of the world, who put no restraint on his
fancy, and are not prone to censure, and Veronese, with the bridle on
his neck, so to speak, uses his opportunities fully, yet never exceeds
the limits of good taste. He is not gross and sensual like Rubens, but
proud, grave and sweet, seductive, but never suggestive or vulgar. After
having placed single figures wherever he can find a nook, he assembles
all the gods of Olympia at a supper in the cupola. Immortality is a
beautiful young woman seated on a cloud. Mercury gazes at her, caduceus
in hand; Diana caresses her great hound; Saturn, an old man, rests his
head on his hand; Mars, Apollo, Venus, and a little cupid are scattered
in the Empyrean, and Jupiter presides over the party. Below, a balcony
rail runs round the cupola, and looking over it, an old lady, dressed in
the latest fashion, points out the company to a beautiful young one and
to a young man in a doublet who holds a hound in a leash. They are
evidently family portraits, taken from those who looked on at the
artist, and on the other side he has introduced members of his own
family who were helping him. These decorations have a gaiety, an
absence of pedantry, a sound and sane sympathy with the spirit of the
Renaissance which tell of a happy moment when art was at its height and
in touch with its environment. From about 1563 we may begin to date his
great supper pictures. The Marriage of Cana (Louvre), one of his most
famous works, was painted for the refectory in Sammichele, the old part
of S. Giorgio Maggiore. The treaty for it is still in existence, dated
June 1562. The artist asks for a year; the Prior is to furnish canvas
and colours, the painter's board, and a cask of wine. The further
payment of 972 ducats illustrates the prices received by the greatest
artists at the height of the Renaissance: £280 for work which occupied
quite eight months.
Veronese must have delighted in painting this work. Needless to say, it
is not in the least religious. He has united in it all the most varied
personages who struck his imagination. So we see a Spanish grandee,
Francis I., Suleiman the Sultan, Charles V., Vittoria Colonna, and
Eleanor of Austria. In the foreground, grouped round a table, are
Veronese himself, playing the viol, Tintoretto accompanying him, Jacopo
da Ponte seated by them, and Paolo's brother, the architect, with his
hand on his hip, tossing off a full glass; and in the governor of the
feast, opulent and gorgeously attired, we recognise Aretino. Under
the marble columns of a Grimani or a Pesaro, he brings in all the
illustrious actors of his own time and leaves us an odd and informing
document. We can but accept the scene and admire the originality of its
design and the freedom of its execution, its boldness and fancy, the way
in which the varied incidents are brought into harmony, and the grace of
the colonnade, peopled with spectators, standing out against the depth
of distant sky.
The celebrated suppers, of which this is the first example, are
dispersed in different galleries and some have disappeared, but from
this time Veronese loved to paint these great displays, repeating some
of them, but always introducing variety.
[Illustration: _Paolo Veronese._
MARRIAGE IN CANA.
_Louvre._
(_Photo, Mansell and Co._)]
In 1564 he accompanied Girolamo Grimani, procurator of St. Mark's, who
was appointed ambassador to the Holy See, and for the first time saw the
works of Raphael and Michelangelo and the treasures of antiquity. For
a time, the sight of the antique had some effect upon his work; in his
famous ceiling in the Louvre, "Jupiter destroying the Vices," the
influence of Michelangelo is apparent and its large gestures are
inspired by sculpture. Ridolfi says that Veronese brought home casts
from Rome, and statues of Amazons and the Laocoon seem to have inspired
the Jupiter. He did not go on long in this path; he does not really care
for the nude--it is too simple for him. He prefers that his saints and
divinities should appear in the gorgeous costumes of the day, and that
his Venus and Diana and the nymphs should trail in rich brocades. But
few documents are left concerning his work for the Ducal Palace up to
1576; much of it was destroyed in the great fire, but the Signoria then
gave him a number of fresh commissions. The most important was the
immense oval of the "Triumph of Venice," or, as it is sometimes called,
the "Thanksgiving for Lepanto"; the Republic crowned by victory and
surrounded by allegorical figures, Glory, Peace, Happiness, Ceres, Juno
and the rest. The composition shows the utmost freedom: the fair Queen
leans back, surrounded by laughing patricians, who look up from their
balconies, as if they were attending a regatta on the Grand Canal. The
horses of the Free Companions, the soldiers who go afar to carry out the
will of the Republic, prance in a crowd of personages, each of whom
represents a town or colony of her domain. Like all Veronese's
creations, this will always be pre-eminently a picture of the sixteenth
century, dated by a thousand details of costume, architecture, and
armour. Venice, the Venice of Lepanto and the Venier, of Titian,
Aretino, and Veronese himself, makes a deep impression upon us, and
the artist reflects his age with sympathetic spontaneity.
Hardly a hall of the Ducal Palace but can show a canvas of Veronese or
the assistants by whom he was now surrounded. From time to time he
resumed the decorations of S. Sebastiano, and his incessant production
betrays no trace of fatigue or languor. The martyrdom of the saint is a
triumph of the beauty of the silhouette against a radiant sky. He goes
back to Verona and paints the "Martyrdom of St. George." He pours light
into it. The saints open a shining path, down which a flower-crowned
Love flutters with the diadem and palm of victory. The whole air and
expression of St. George is full of strength and that look of goodness
and serenity which is the painter's nearest approach to religious
feeling. Veronese was created a Chevalier of St. Mark; every one was
asking for his services, but he was a stay-at-home by nature and fond of
living with his family. Philip II. longed to get him to cover his great
walls in the Escurial, but he very civilly declined all his invitations
and sent Federigo Zucchero in his stead.
It was on account of the "Feast in the House of Levi" that in 1573 he
was hauled before the tribunal of the Inquisition, and the document
concerning this was only discovered a few years ago. The Signoria had
never allowed any tribunal to chastise works of literature; on the
contrary, Venice, though comparatively poor herself in geniuses of the
mind, was the refuge of freedom of thought, and, in fact, had made a
sort of compact with Niccolas V., which allowed her to set aside or
suspend the decisions of the Holy Office, from which she could not quite
emancipate herself. Veronese, however, was denounced by some "aggrieved
person," to whom his way of treating sacred subjects seemed an outrage
on religion. The members of the tribunal demanded "who the boy was with
the bleeding nose?" and "why were halberdiers admitted?" Veronese
replied that they were the sort of servants a rich and magnificent host
would have about him. He was then asked why he had introduced the
buffoon with a parrot on his hand. He replied that he really thought
only Christ and His Apostles were present, but that when he had a little
space over, he adorned it with imaginary figures. This defence of the
vast and crowded canvas did not commend itself, and he was asked if he
really thought that at the Last Supper of our Saviour it was fitting to
bring in dwarfs, buffoons, drunken Germans, and other absurdities. Did
he not know that in Germany and other places infested with heresy, they
were in the habit of turning the things of Holy Church into ridicule,
with intent to teach false doctrine to the ignorant? Paolo for his
defence cited the Last Judgment, where Michelangelo had painted every
figure in the nude, but the Inquisitor replied crushingly, that these
were disembodied spirits, who could not be expected to wear clothing.
Could Veronese uphold his picture as decent? The painter was probably
not very much alarmed. He was a person of great importance in Venice,
and the proceedings of the Inquisition were always jealously watched
by members of the Senate, who would not have permitted any unfair
interference with the liberties of those under the protection of the
State. The real offence was the introduction of the German soldiers, who
were peculiarly obnoxious to the Venetians; but Veronese did not care
what the subject was as long as it gave him an excuse for a great
_spectacle_. Brought to bay, he gave the true answer: "My Lords, I have
not considered all this. I was far from wishing to picture anything
disorderly. I painted the picture as it seemed best to me and as my
intellect could conceive of it." It meant that Veronese painted in the
way that he considered most artistic, without even remembering questions
of religion, and in this he summed up his whole æsthetic creed. He was
set at liberty on condition that he took out one or two of the most
offending figures. The "Feast in the House of Levi" (as he named it
after the trial) is the finest of all his great scenic effects. The air
circulates freely through the white architecture, we breathe more deeply
as we look out into the wide blue sky, and such is the sensation of
expansion, that it is hardly possible to believe we are gazing at a flat
wall. Titian's backgrounds are a blue horizon, a burning twilight.
Veronese builds marble palaces, with rosy shadows, or columns blanched
in the liquid light. His personages show little violent action. He
places them in noble poses in which they can best show off their
magnificent clothes, and he endows his patricians, his goddesses, his
sacred persons, with a uniform air of majestic indolence.
After his "trial," Veronese proceeded more triumphantly than ever. Every
prince wished to have something from his brush; the Emperor Rudolph, at
Prague, showed with pride the canvases taken later by Gustavus Adolphus.
The Duke of Modena, carrying on the traditions of Ferrara, added
Veronese's works to the treasures of the house of Este. The last ten
years of his life were given up to visiting churches on the mainland and
on the little islands round Venice, all covetous to possess something by
the brilliant Veronese, whose name was in every mouth. Torcello, Murano,
Treviso, Castelfranco, every convent and monastery loaded him with
commissions, and it is significant of the spirit of the time, that in
spite of the disapproval of the Holy See, his most ardent patrons, those
who delighted most in his robust, uncompromising worldliness, were to be
found in the religious houses. Then, when he went to rest in the summer
heats in some villa on the Brenta, he left delightful souvenirs here and
there. It was on such an occasion, for the Pisani, that he painted the
"Family of Darius," which was sold to England by a member of the house
in 1857. The royal captives, who are throwing themselves at the feet of
the conqueror, are, with Paolo's usual frank naïveté and disregard of
anachronisms, dressed in full Venetian costume--all the chief personages
are portraits of the Pisani family. The freedom and rapidity of
execution, the completeness and finish, the charm of colour, the
beauty of the figures (especially the princely ones of Alexander and
Hephaestion), and its extraordinary energy, make this one of the finest
of all his works. The critic, Charles Blanc, says of it, "It is absurd
and dazzling."
In the "Rape of Europa," he recurred again to one of those legends of
fabled beings who have outlasted dynasties and are still fresh and
living. Veronese was surrounded by men like Aretino and Bembo, well
versed in mythology, and with his usual zest he makes the tale an excuse
for painting lovely, blooming women, rich toilets, and a delightful
landscape. The wild flowers spring, and the little Loves fly to and fro
against a cloud-flecked sky of the wonderful Veronese turquoise. It is
the work of a man who is a true poet of colour and for whom colour
represents all the emotions of joy and pleasure.
Veronese died comparatively young, of chill and fever, and all his
family survived him. He lies buried in San Sebastiano. From contemporary
memoirs we know that he lived and dressed splendidly. He kept immense
stores of gorgeous stuffs to paint from in his studio, and drew
everything from life,--the negroes covered with jewels, the bright-eyed
pages, the models who, robed in velvets, brocades and satins, became
queens or courtesans or saints. The pearls which bedecked them were from
his own caskets. Though we know little of his private life, his work is
so alive that he seems personified in it. He is saved from what might
have been a prosaic or a sordid style by the delicious, ever-changing
colour in which he revels; his silks and satins are less modelled by
shadows than tinted by broken reflections, his embroidered and striped
and arabesqued tissues are so harmoniously combined that the eye rests,
wherever it falls, on something exquisite and subtle in tint. This is
where his genius lies, "the decoration does not add to the interest of
the drama; it replaces it"; in short, it _is_ the drama itself, for his
types show little selection, and his ideal of female beauty is not a
very sympathetic one. His personages are cold and devoid of expression,
their gestures are rather meaningless, but by means of light and air and
exquisite colour he gives the poetical touch which all great art
demands.
On account of their size few examples of Veronese's work are to be found
in private collections, but the galleries of the different European
capitals are rich in them. Numbers of paintings, too, which are by his
assistants are dignified by his name, and directly after his death
spurious works were freely manufactured and sold as genuine.
PRINCIPAL WORKS
Dresden. Madonna with Cuccina Family; Adoration of Magi;
Marriage of Cana.
Florence. Pitti: Portrait of Daniele Barbaro.
Uffizi: Martyrdom of S. Giustina; Holy Family (E.).
London. Consecration of S. Niccolas; The Family of Darius before
Alexander; Adoration of the Magi.
Maser. Villa Barbaro: Frescoes.
Padua. S. Giustina: Martyrdom of S. Giustina.
Paris. Christ at Emmaus; Marriage of Cana.
Venice. Academy: Battle of Lepanto; Feast in the House of Levi; Madonna
with Saints.
Ducal Palace: Triumph of Venice; Rape of Europa; Venice
enthroned.
S. Barnabà: Holy Family.
S. Francesco della Vigna: Holy Family.
S. Sebastiano: Madonna and Saints; Crucifixion; Madonna in
Glory with S. Sebastian and other Saints; others in part;
Frescoes; Saints and Figure of Faith; Sibyls.
Verona. Portrait of Pasio Guadienti, 1556.
S. Giorgio: Martyrdom of S. George.
Vicenza. Monte Berico: Feast of St. Gregory, 1572.
Vienna. Christ at the House of Jairus.