Paolo Veronese
Venice’s painter of feasts.
Paolo Veronese painted enormous banquet scenes in bright colours. The Inquisition questioned a Last Supper with jesters and a dog, and he simply changed the title.
Paolo Veronese’s real name was Paolo Caliari, and he was born in Verona in 1528, which gave him his nickname. His father was a stonemason. Paolo was apprenticed to the painter Antonio Badile, whose daughter Elena he later married. Already in Verona he showed a gift for creating large, bright compositions with architecture.
Around 1553 he moved to Venice, where he soon received commissions in the Doge’s Palace. He decorated the church of San Sebastiano, where he is also buried. Around 1560 he painted frescoes in the Villa Barbaro at Maser, designed by the architect Andrea Palladio. There he painted illusionistic doors with servants peeking through, and views of landscapes that do not exist.
He is best known for his enormous banquet scenes. The Wedding at Cana of 1562–63 was painted for the refectory of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore. It was taken to Paris by Napoleon’s troops in 1797 and is today the largest painting in the Louvre. Over a hundred people crowd around the table, in splendid costumes and with musicians in the foreground. In 1573 he painted a Last Supper for another monastery. The Inquisition summoned him for questioning because the picture contained jesters, German soldiers and a dog. He defended himself by saying that painters take the same liberties as poets and madmen, and solved the problem by giving the painting a new title: The Feast in the House of Levi. It is now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice. The record of the interrogation survives.
Veronese painted in bright, silvery colours with costly fabrics, marble columns and clear skies. His pictures are festive and orderly rather than dramatic. He wanted to delight the eye, and he was less interested in religious intensity. He ran a large workshop with his brother and his sons, who continued the work after his death in 1588.
Veronese became a model for the decorative painting of the 18th century, not least for Tiepolo. His bright colours and delight in surface were admired much later by artists such as Delacroix.