It was in the city of Verona that Paul Cagliari, the last of the great
painters of the Venetian school, was born. The name of that old city of
the Veneto makes us think at once of moonlight nights and fair Juliet
gazing from her balcony as she bids farewell to her dear Romeo. For it
was here that the two lovers lived their short lives which ended so
sadly.
But Verona has other titles to fame besides being the scene of
Shakespeare's story, and one of her proudest boasts is that she gave
her name to the great Venetian artist Paolo Veronese, or Paul of
Verona, as we would say in English.
There were many artists in Verona when Paolo was a boy. His own father
was a sculptor and his uncle a famous painter, so the child was
encouraged to begin work early. As soon as he showed that he had a
talent for painting, he was sent to his uncle's studio to be taught his
first lessons in drawing.
Verona was not very far off from Venice, and Paolo was never tired of
listening to the tales told of that beautiful Queen of the Sea. He
loved to try and picture her magnificence, her marble palaces overlaid
with gold, her richly-dressed nobles, and, above all, the wonder of
those pictures which decked her walls. The very names of Giorgione and
Titian sounded like magic in his ears. They seemed to open out before
him a wonderful new Paradise, where stately men and women clad in the
richest robes moved about in a world of glowing colour.
At last the day came when he was to see the city of his dreams, and
enter into that magic world of Art. What delight it was to study those
pictures hour by hour, and learn the secrets of the great masters. It
was the best teaching that heart could desire.
No one in Venice took much notice of the quiet, hard-working young
painter, and he worked on steadily by himself for some years. But at
last his chance came, and he was commissioned to paint the ceiling of
the church of St. Sebastian; and when this was finished Venice
recognised his genius, and saw that here was another of her sons whom
she must delight to honour.
These great pictures of Veronese were just the kind of work to charm
the rich Venetians, those merchant princes who delighted in costly
magnificence. Never before had any painter pictured such royal scenes
of grandeur. There were banqueting halls with marble balustrades just
like their own Venetian palaces. The guests that thronged these halls
were courtly gentlemen and high-born ladies arrayed in rich brocades
and dazzling jewels. Men-servants and maidservants, costly ornaments
and golden dishes were there, everything that heart could desire.
True, there was not much room for religious feeling amid all this
grandeur, although the painter would call the pictures by some Bible
name and would paint in the figure of our Lord, or the Blessed Virgin,
among the gay crowd. But no one stopped to think about religion, and
what cared they if the guests at the 'Marriage Feast of Cana' were
dressed in the rich robes of Venetian nobles, and all was as different
as possible from the simple wedding-feast where Christ worked his first
miracle.
So the fame of Paolo Veronese grew greater and greater, and he painted
more and more gorgeous pictures. But here and there we find a simpler
and more charming piece of his work, as when he painted the little St.
John with the skin thrown over his bare shoulder and the cross in his
hand. He is such a really childlike figure as he stands looking upward
and rests his little hand confidingly on the worn and wounded palm of
St. Francis, who stands beside him.
Although the Venetian nobles found nothing wanting in the splendid
pictures which Veronese painted, the Church at last began to have
doubts as to whether they were fit as religious subjects to adorn her
walls. The Holy Office considered the question, and Veronese was
ordered to appear before the council.
Was it, indeed, fit that court jesters, little negro boys, and even
cats and pet dogs should appear in pictures which were to decorate the
walls of a church? Veronese answered gravely that it was the effect of
the picture that mattered, and that the details need not be thought of.
So the complaint was dismissed.
These pictures of Paolo Veronese were really great pieces of
decoration, very wonderful in their way, but showing already that Art
was sinking lower instead of rising higher.
If the spirits of the old masters could have returned to gaze upon this
new work, what would their feelings have been? How the simple Giotto
would have shaken his head over this wealth of ornament which meant so
little, even while he marvelled at the clever work. How sorrowfully
would Fra Angelico have turned away from this perfection of worldly
vanity, and sighed to think that the art of painting was no longer a
golden chain to link men's souls to Heaven. Even the merry-hearted monk
Fra Filippo Lippi would scarce have approved of all this gorgeous
company.
Art had indeed shaken off the binding rules of old tradition, and
Veronese was free to follow his own magnificent fancy. But who can say
if that freedom was indeed a gain? And it is with a sigh that we close
the record of Italian Art and turn our eyes, wearied with all its
splendour and the glare of the noonday sun, back to the early dawn,
when the soul of the painter looked through his pictures, and taught us
the simple lesson that work done for the glory of God was greater than
that done for the praise of men.