How the artist who admired Goethe himself interpreted religious subjects: Paolo Veronese

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Paolo Veronese was one of the most prominent painters of his time. His work is appreciated not only at home, but also abroad around the world. He had some of the most influential patrons, and even Goethe himself admired his work. He painted portraits of nobility and religious motives, decorated villas and monasteries, played with light, shadow and colors, creating amazing masterpieces that are admired to this day.

The youngest of five brothers and sisters, Paolo Cagliari, nicknamed Veronese for his place of birth, was born in 1528 in the Italian city of Verona, then the mainland province of the Venetian Republic. His father, Gabriele, was a stonecutter, and his mother, Caterina, was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman named Antonio Cagliari.

Paolo first studied with his father and for some time, like his father, was a mason. However, while working with his father, Paolo's developed talent for drawing manifested itself beyond his years, and at the age of fourteen his apprenticeship was transferred to the workshop of a local master named Antonio Bandile (he later married his daughter). Some unconfirmed sources suggest that he may have studied at the same time in the workshops of Giovanni Francesco Caroto, from whom he probably inherited his passion for the use of color.

Soon, his talent surpassed all the requirements that were usually placed on Bandila's disciples. He had already moved away from the naturalistic tones of the High Renaissance and began to develop his own preference for a more colorful, expressive palette. He helped Antonio with the altars, and some parts of these works already had his corporate identity. Seeing the works of Veronese on the altars, Michele Sanmicheli, the architect of many important buildings in Verona, gave Paolo his first important opportunity - to work on the frescoes for the Palazzo Canossa. Veronese briefly moved to Mantua, where he met Giulio Romano, the main student and assistant of Raphael and one of the pioneers of the Mannerist style.

Paolo painted frescoes in the city's Duomo (Roman Catholic Cathedral) before leaving for Venice in 1552. 1553 was a very important year for Paolo. He returned to Venice as soon as he learned of the death of his father. Paolo later took the surname Cagliari from his mother in the hope that this would give him more access to the Venetian aristocracy, while he used Veronese primarily for the purpose of signing and drawing attention to his place of birth.

Working in Venice allowed him to take advantage of the new demand for Venetian painting generated by artists such as Giorgione, Titian and Tintoretto. Following in their respected footsteps, Paolo quickly received orders from governing bodies, including the Council of Ten and the San Sebastiano fraternity.

Soon, Veronese began to receive patronage from influential aristocratic families such as the Barbaro family, for whom he decorated a villa (their stately home near Mather). In the second half of the 1550s, Paolo decorated the villa of the most famous Venetian architect Andrea Palladio. The collaboration between artist and architect was widely seen as a triumph of art and design, and Palladio later described Veronese in his four books on architecture as "the most excellent artist."For his part, Paolo referred to their professional connections by including the Palladian buildings in his great masterpiece The Marriage at Cana. Meanwhile, Veronese continued to work (as did Tintoretto) on the restoration of the Palazzo Ducale during the 1560s and 70s after a series of severe fires. Paolo married Elena (Bandila's daughter) in 1566, and two years later they had the first of five children (four sons and one daughter). Veronese's mother, Caterina, had also moved to Venice by this time.

Despite a decade of great uncertainty for Venice, Veronese solidified its status and strong family ties during the 1570s. A year later, as part of the Holy League (that is, the League of the great Catholic maritime powers), Venice defeated the Ottoman Empire, and Veronese named his only daughter Vittoria in honor of this victory in 1572.

The resulting Counter-Reformation, which saw a great revival of Catholic culture, began to exert its influence on Venice. Now the demand for erotic or mythological works diminished, and Paolo had to create small paintings dedicated to worship. Between 1574 and 1577, major fires and plague epidemics struck Venice (the plague took Titian in 1576), and Veronese began investing his considerable wealth in land and property. By the 1580s, he had founded a workshop with his sons and brother Benedetto. Veronese, who incidentally returned to his real name Paolo Cagliari in 1575, died of pneumonia in 1588 and was buried in the church of San Sebastiano, surrounded by his artistic contributions to the church.

For at least ten years after his death, the Veronese family used sketches and drawings to complete new works from the studio, signed under the title "Paolo's Descendants", while etchings of Veronese's works were in high demand even during his lifetime, which was extremely unusual for a living artist at the time. This allowed his Mannerist style to be carried far beyond its time and place of origin. Art critic Claire Robertson associates Veronese, for example, with the famous French painter Eugene Delacroix, whose Liberty Leading the People (1830) uses dramatic lighting and refers to modern architecture in the manner of Veronese painting The Wedding at Cana.

Xavier F. Solomon, author of the National Gallery's catalog of Veronese, meanwhile, linked him to the Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens through his emphasis on storytelling and luminous color, as seen in works such as Descent from the Cross.

It is also known that Diego Velazquez acquired "Venus and Adonis" by Veronese (circa 1580) at some point during his trip to Italy between 1649 and 1651, and thanks to the complex composition of figures set in a harsh architectural setting, the influence of Veronese can be traced in works such as Las Meninas (1656). It is also known that in 1797 Napoleon had such a high opinion of The Wedding at Cana (1563) that he ordered his troops to fold the canvas and transport it to Paris. In the end, the painting took its place in the Louvre opposite the Mona Lisa, where it was admired not only by Delacroix, but also by the poet Charles Baudelaire, who was moved enough to write about Veronese's “heavenly afternoon colors”.

As for his other paintings and works, this is a completely different story, telling about plots, often based on real events and not only. Take, for example, The History of Esther. Soon after arriving in Venice, twenty-five-year-old Veronese received a prestigious commission from prelate Bernardo Torlioni to work on the ceiling of San Sebastiano. His painting shows an early moment in the biblical story of Esther, when she was crowned queen by the Persian king Ahasuerus. Esther continued to save the Jewish people (from the evil Haman depicted in the lower right corner of the picture), and this deliverance from destruction became the Jewish religious holiday of Purim.

Ceiling murals like these, whose function was to provide the church with historical narratives, iconographic images, and decorative motifs, were not intended to be viewed at eye level. De Sotto in su (bottom-up) describes a Renaissance painting technique that requires foreshortening of figures with the effect (when viewed from Earth) that the figures are suspended in mid-air. The "floating" figures here are complemented by the bright colors of Veronese, which help to enhance the sacred character of the painting and its decorative effect. Art critic Carlos Ridolfi viewed this early work as a symbol of Veronese's style in the way it depicted richly decorated kings, a variety of draperies against the backdrop of an architectural scene. Veronese's contract with San Sebastian was extended several times between 1558 and 1561, making it the most suitable building for his own funerary monument.

As for the work "The Wedding in Cana", it was commissioned by the Benedictine monks of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice to hang in their new refectory, designed by Andrea Palladio. The terms of Veronese's commission stipulated that he would make a picture of the wedding feast large enough to fill the entire wall of the refectory. It took Paolo fifteen months to finish the job, probably with the help of his brother Benedetto Cagliari. The masterpiece is based on the biblical story of the first miracle of Christ, although the viewer will need to make an effort to find this parable in the bustle of a multi-layered and fairly modern picture. As Deanna MacDonald described it:.

Together with Mary and several apostles, Christ was invited to a wedding in Cana, in the city of Galilee. During the festivities, the supply of wine is depleted, and, in response to Mary's request, Christ asked the servants to fill the stone jugs with water (shown here in the right foreground) and offer them to the owner of the house (sitting in the left foreground), who discovers, to his amazement (and joy) that the water turned into wine. This story is also the forerunner of the Eucharist, referred to by a servant sacrificing the “lamb of God” on the upper tier directly above Christ (who sits next to Mary in the center of a huge banquet table).

Veronese freely mixes the biblical with the modern. As you might expect, Jesus and Mary are surrounded by glowing auras. However, they are joined by at least one hundred and thirty figures, and while some of them are dressed in biblical robes, others, according to MacDonald, look like they just entered from St. Mark's Square. Indeed, among the minor characters are Venetian aristocrats and prominent foreigners, who can be recognized by their exotic outfits. Among the guests are figures such as Mary I of England, Suleiman the Magnificent (tenth Sultan of the Ottoman Empire) and Emperor Charles V. Veronese's willingness to promote these conventions indicates the sense of insolence that comes through his desire to emphasize the sacred with the profane.

There is also one story that, unfortunately, cannot be verified, but nevertheless, it became part of the legend of the picture. Legend has it that the musician in the foreground is none other than Veronese. He is surrounded by two other Venetian masters, Titian and Bassano, and the figure contemplating a glass of wine (to his left) is the poet and writer Pietro Aretino.

Portraits were only a small part of Paolo's work, and for this reason they have their own meaning. In the painting "Portrait of Daniele Barbaro" sits the head of an aristocratic family and one of the main patrons of Veronese. His clothing testifies to his high status in local religious institutions, and the texts on his writing table testify to his scholarship. However, Barbaro sits at an angle historically reserved for cardinals and popes only.

The vertical book is his work La Practica della Perspettiva (1568), the meaning of which is determined by the different planes of the painting. The volume he holds in his left hand is his manuscript of Vitruvius' De Architectura (circa 30 BC), with illustrations of palladium, highlighting the close connection between the three people. The interaction between light and textiles is brightened up with a dark background. The portrait painted by Veronese marked a progress towards a more complex type of portraiture, in which magnificent costumes and pictorial effects were balanced by a deeper psychological representation.

This historical painting, entitled "The Family of Darius before Alexander," depicts Alexander the Great receiving the family of the Persian king Darius III, who had just defeated him in battle. The mother of Tsar Darius, Sizigambis, kneeling in the center of the picture, mistakenly mistakes the friend and assistant of Alexander Hephaestion (he was probably fascinated by the attire of the adviser) for the victorious monarch. This potentially grave insult is overlooked by Alexander in his demonstration of benevolence and nobility. Veronese interprets this scene somewhat ambiguously, and the viewer can be forgiven for thinking that Hephaestion is really Alexander. However, most of the figures are elegantly dressed in modern Venetian fashion, and the victorious Alexander, dressed rather in heroic armor, belongs to the origins of classical historical painting.

Like many of Veronese's paintings, the architectural setting is designed to create a low-horizon painting that helps reproduce the viewing experience of a popular stage production. Indeed, Paolo exaggerated the drama of this scene, describing events on the grounds of the palace (and not in the military tent). Further, he renounces all obligations to naturalism, dressing his figures or characters in ostentatious clothes. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe himself defended the tailor's extravagance of the picture:.

The fact that Venice was at that time a major center of world trade meant that it imported a wide range of raw materials used in paint production. Thus, historians and art historians can say that the fact that Veronese is considered such an outstanding colorist can be explained, at least in part, by his environment.

However, any of his works is worthy of special attention and admiration. And it is not at all surprising that his work is so highly valued all over the world, causing a lot of reasoning, reflection and even controversy.

They talked and talk about them, their work is admired to this day. But practically no one knows about how and how the expressionist artists managed to conquer the world.