Part 2

Veronese, who was a prodigiously fertile artist, left not a single space in Barbaro's house unoccupied with colour. Wherever space would not permit of large compositions, he painted trophies, garlands, flowers, even statues, possessing all the lustre and relief of marble. Elsewhere he sketched in architectural fantasies, simulating colonnades and porticoes, opening upon landscapes borrowed from the realm of dreams; he conceived imaginary doors, before which fictitious lacqueys appeared to be standing. The principal subjects treated by Veronese at Masiera include _Nobility_, _Honour_, _Magnificence_, _Vice_, _Virtue_, _Flora_, _Pomona_, _Ceres_ and _Bacchus_; then in the ceiling of the cupola he gathered together all the gods of Olympus, grouped around Jupiter.

The decorations in the palace at Masiera further augmented Veronese's fame. He was now acknowledged to be the foremost painter of Venice, next to Titian. Barbaro had been so delighted with his talents that he determined to do him a service. Standing well at court, he recommended him to the Signoria. As a result of this, the latter entrusted him with the task of redecorating the halls and chambers of the Doge's Palace, in conjunction with Tintoretto and Orazio Titian. Which of the three artists proved superior it is impossible to decide to-day, because a fire, occurring in 1576, destroyed their paintings along with the palace. But public opinion of that period gave the palm to Veronese.

It seems as though this verdict must have been justified, in view of the esteem in which his name was held.

Shortly afterwards, Sansovino having completed the construction of the library, the procurators instructed the architect to arrange with Titian as to a choice of painters to decorate it in competition. Veronese was immediately designated, together with Zelotti, Batista Franco, Giuseppe Salviati, Lo Schiavene and Il Fratina, who were to divide the twenty-one ceiling panels between them. Three round compartments fell to the lot of Veronese, who filled them with figures representing _Music_, _Geometry with Arithmetic_, and _Honour_. Under Veronese's brush these cold abstractions took on the most charming forms; they were represented by graceful women, each surrounded by the attributes of the science which she symbolized. A recompense was promised by the procurators to the artist whose paintings should be adjudged most beautiful. Titian was enthusiastic over those of Veronese. Loyal and noble artist that he was, he himself solicited the votes of the painters who had taken part in the competition, and thus Veronese was declared winner by the voice of his own competitors. The senate offered him a golden chain which he delighted to wear on solemn occasions.

These great official works did not diminish the number of his productions for churches, convents, or private persons of wealth. No other artist affords an example of similar fecundity.

And what verges upon prodigy is that he never employed collaborators, as so many other celebrated painters have done; the only one that he is known to have had is his brother Benedetto Caliari, whose artistic aid was limited to painting in the prospective of the vast architectural designs with which it pleased Veronese to embellish all his canvases.

The epoch of his most fertile production was between 1562 and 1565; it was also the period in which he executed his largest and most celebrated paintings, notably his famous canvas of the _Wedding at Cana_, his _Feast at the House of the Pharisee_, his _Feast at the House of the Leper_, and his _Feast at the House of Simon_.

These four pictures are known under the name of the four _Feasts_. Two of them belong to France and hang in the museum of the Louvre, in the room known by the name of the _Salon Carré_; these are the _Feast at the House of Simon the Pharisee_ and the _Wedding at Cana_.

THE WEDDING AT CANA

Veronese has treated this subject twice. Accordingly the picture in the Louvre must not be confounded with that of the same name in the Brera museum at Milan. In spite of the value of the latter, it bears no comparison to the gigantic canvas in the national museum of France.

This picture of the _Wedding at Cana_ was painted by Veronese for the refectory of the convent of San Giorgio Maggiore, on the island that faces the _Riva dei Schiavoni_. It remained there until the time of Napoleon's Italian Campaign. Bonaparte, who loved the arts without understanding them, laid profane hands on the great majority of Italian masterpieces. This painting by Veronese was one of the number, and found a place in the Louvre. The treaty of 1815 obliged France to restore these treasures, but the Austrian commissioners, appointed to accomplish the restitution, became alarmed at the difficulties of transportation which the _Wedding at Cana_ presented. They accordingly consented to exchange this canvas for a painting by Le Brun, _The Feast at the House of the Pharisee_. Veronese's masterpiece remained in the Louvre, in which it is one of the most flawless gems.

The contract drawn up between Veronese and the Prior of San Giorgio Maggiore for the execution of this picture has been preserved. The painter bound himself to deliver it within a year, since the contract was signed June 6, 1562 and the delivery of the canvas took place of September 8, 1563. He was to be furnished with canvas and colours, to be entitled to take his meals at the convent and receive a cask of wine as additional recompense. As to remuneration for his work, it was fixed by mutual agreement at 324 ducats, which, in the 16th century, corresponded to 972 francs in the coin of France. Taking into consideration the enhanced value of money since that epoch, these 972 francs would represent to-day 7,000 francs. Such is the price which the greatest artist of his time received for a masterpiece which to-day commands the admiration of the entire world.

Never did Veronese display so much brilliance, dispense so much imagination as in the _Wedding at Cana_; never did he show a greater dexterity in execution; for, however considerable the dimensions of the canvas may be, it demanded nothing less than genius to distribute without clash or disproportion the hundred and thirty-two personages which compose it. A painter less thoroughly sure of himself would have made a sorry mess of this Feast; Veronese has produced a composition that is admirable for its balance, in abounding charming details, and unexpected and picturesque episodes, that do not in the least detract from the effect of the painting as a whole.

On this picture, as on so many others from the brush of Veronese, one cannot, as has already been said, pass an equitable judgment, unless one accepts, without question, the master's method. Veronese had no more respect for religious tradition than he had for mythological legend. To take issue with the incongruities and anachronisms of the _Wedding at Cana_, is voluntarily to debar oneself from discussing it. If historic exactitude is the one thing that counts in a painting, then this picture simply does not exist. But happily painting has no need to justify itself to history; it is amply sufficient to itself, without borrowing anything from history, and loses nothing of its beauty if perchance it does violence to history. And of this the _Wedding at Cana_ furnishes a most eloquent proof.

The composition of this famous picture is well known. Jesus is seated in the middle focus, at the centre of the table, which is curved on each side in the form of a horse-shoe. To fill this immense table, Veronese did not go to the scriptures in search of personages; he drew them from his surroundings and from his own imagination.

The groom, a handsome, black bearded young man, clad in purple and gold, is no other than Alphonso d'Avalos, Marquis del Vasto, and the bride is a portrait of Eleanora of Austria, sister of Charles V., and Queen of France. On the left, one discovers, with some surprise, Francis I., Charles V., the Sultan Achmed II., and Queen Mary of England. Beside the Sultan is a woman richly robed and holding a tooth-pick; she is Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara; then, further on are monks, cardinals, and personal friends of the artist. Standing up, clad in brocade and holding a cup in his hand, is Veronese's brother, Benedetto Caliari. In the centre are a group of musicians. The octogenarian bending over his viol, is a portrait of Titian; Bassano is playing the flute; Tintoretto and Veronese himself draw their bow across the strings of a 'cello.

The success of the _Wedding at Cana_ was triumphal. The great painters of Venice, contemporaries of Veronese, overwhelmed him with proofs of their admiration; even morose Tintoretto found some extremely amiable words in which to praise his rival in fame, and Titian embraced the happy painter when he chanced to meet him in the city streets.

These praises were merited; the _Wedding at Cana_ is quite truly one of the most beautiful masterpieces in the world's collection of paintings.

The renown obtained by this admirable work brought Veronese a host of orders. The various cities vied with each other to secure him to decorate their churches or their convents. His first patron, the Prior Torlioni, ordered a picture from him for the convent of San Sebastiano, the church of which he had already decorated. Veronese, by no means ungrateful, painted for him the _Feast at the House of the Leper_, in 1570; three years later he painted for the dominican monastery of San Giovanni e Paolo the _Feast at the House of Levi_, to decorate one side of the refectory. The monks had only a modest sum at their disposal and tremblingly offered it to the now celebrated painter; they naïvely added the donation of a few casks of wine. Veronese exhibited the most complete disinterestedness by accepting these humble offers of the Prior. This was his third _Feast_.

The fourth, known under the name of the _Feast at the House of Simon the Pharisee_, was executed for the refectory of the Brotherhood of Servites. It represents Magdalen on her knees, wiping the feet of Christ with her hair. This painting now hangs in the Louvre, opposite the _Wedding at Cana_. It has been the property of France for two centuries, and the history of its acquisition by Louis XIV is curious enough to be worth the telling. Colbert, having learned that Spain had negotiated for the purchase of the _Feast at the House of Simon_, resolved to go to any lengths in order to acquire it himself, on behalf of Louis XIV. The French ambassador to Venice, Pierre de Bonzi, was charged with the negotiations. To address himself directly to the Servites was impossible, since there was a law in the Venetian Republic forbidding the sale and exportation of any native works of art. Bonzi pursued the course of informing the Signoria of his royal master's wish. The Signoria, desirous of securing the good will of the great king, without violating her own laws, purchased with public funds the picture from the Servites, and straightway offered it to Louis XIV, who returned warm thanks to his "very dear and great friends, allies and confederates, after having seen this rare and most perfect original."

VERONESE AND THE INQUISITION

These four _Feasts_ of Veronese won him a widespread renown. But there were certain hostile spirits, uncompromising traditionalists, to whom the fantastic elements which he introduced into the composition of his religious pictures were necessarily strongly displeasing. To introduce dwarfs, buffoons, men at arms under the influence of liquor, at a feast where Jesus and his disciples take part,--did not this savour of irreverence, nay, worse than that, of heresy?

The _Feast at the House of Levi the Publican_, executed for the convent of San Giovanni e Paolo, in which Veronese had given free rein to his imagination, was denounced to the Holy Office, and on July 18, 1573, the artist was summoned before the tribunal of the Inquisition.

In the Most Serene Republic this tribunal scarcely had the same redoubtable power with which the sombre fanaticism of Philip II had armed it in Spain. It was none the less a grave risk to incur its displeasure at an epoch when the Papacy still held undisputed sway over the guidance of souls. Consequently this prosecution caused Veronese serious alarm.

M. Armand Baschet discovered quite recently in the archives of the Frari, at Venice, the official record of the trial with all the questions put to him and his answers.

The judges took special exception to his _Feast at the House of Levi_, which seemed to them an outrage upon religion. Each one of the figures in the picture was brought up separately for discussion, and the luckless Veronese was required to make explanation. What was the significance of that man who was bleeding at the nose? Why were those two soldiers, on the steps of the stairway, one of them drinking and the other eating, clad in German uniform? And, at a repast where the Saviour figures, what was that ridiculous buffoon doing with a parroquet on his wrist?

Veronese defended himself as best he could. He assumed a sort of injured innocence and apparently failed to understand the enormity of the irreverence with which he was charged. Next, he took shelter behind the precedent established by the great masters. He cited Michelangelo and his _Last Judgment_:

"At Rome, in the Pope's own chapel, Michelangelo has represented Our Lord, his Mother, Saint John, Saint Peter and the Celestial Choir, and he has represented them all naked, even the Virgin Mary, and that, too, in diverse attitudes, such as were certainly not inspired by our greatest of religions."

Finally, Veronese emphatically denied the charge of any intentional irreverence toward the Church; he declared that he had simply permitted himself, perhaps wrongfully, a certain amount of license such as is accorded to poets and to fools.

His contrite attitude won him the indulgence of the Tribunal. But the judges demanded that he should correct his picture, and he was obliged to remove the dwarfs and the fools and to modify the attitude of his men at arms. This is the picture that may be seen to-day at the Accademia delle Belle Arti, at Venice, retouched in accordance with the orders of the Holy Office.

THE JOURNEY TO ROME

In spite of his keen desire to pay a visit to Rome, Veronese was kept in Venice by his ceaseless productivity, and he attained the age of forty without ever having had the chance of a sight of the Eternal City. Of all the masterpieces in that home of the Pontiffs, he knew nothing, excepting of such as he had seen copied in the form of engravings. The appointment of his friend and patron as ambassador to the Holy See, afforded him an opportunity to make the journey so many times projected and deferred.

No documents exist regarding Veronese's sojourn in Rome, but at all events it was fairly brief. Beyond this, we are reduced to mere conjecture. Furthermore, there is no extant evidence to sustain the idea that he practised his art in the Eternal City. If he had painted any pictures there, some trace of them would surely have been discovered. It must therefore be concluded that he contented himself with admiring the masterpieces with which his illustrious predecessors, Raphael and Michelangelo, had enriched the capital of the Pontiffs.

But his temperament was too peculiar, his manner too individual, and we may as well acknowledge, his nature too superficial, to permit of his experiencing those profound and overwhelming impressions that radically modify an artistic career.

And for this we ought rather to be thankful than to complain, since it was only his obstinate insistence upon remaining himself that saved Veronese from shipwreck upon the ever threatening reef of imitation.

THE RETURN TO VENICE

From the moment of his return to Venice, Veronese was besieged from all sides; once again he found himself enslaved to forced labor by the incessant contracts demanded of him by his fellow citizens. The scantiness of documents which we possess regarding his life does not permit us to name the chronological order in which he painted his pictures. We shall therefore gather them into groups for the sake of convenience in studying his more important works. Furthermore, to study one by one, all of his paintings, is not to be thought of; for this painter was one of the most prolific producers of which the history of art makes mention. In every one of his pictures will be found, more or less accentuated, those qualities of composition, of picturesqueness, and of colour which together constitute his glory. Accordingly we shall limit ourselves to indicating, at the different stages of his career, those pictures which show most deeply the imprint of his genius and which also are most closely related to the life of Venice of which he was, in a certain way, together with Tintoretto, the official painter. For the rest the reader may be referred to the complete catalogue of the works of Veronese given at the close of this book.

Concerning the private life of the artist we are as poorly informed as concerning the date of his pictures. We know only that he married and that he had two sons, Gabriele and Carletto. When they were old enough to hold a brush he entrusted them to Bassano, a Venetian painter whose talent he held in high esteem. As regards himself, the documents of the period vaunt his uprightness, his honesty and his keen sense of honour. Ridolfi, one of his biographers, who wrote sixty years after Veronese's death, and relied upon the recollections of people who knew him personally, pictured him as a man of strict principles and settled habits, and economical almost to the point of avarice. He cites, as an example of this, that the artist rarely employed ultramarine, which was very costly at that time, and thus condemned his works to premature deterioration.

His fortune, the extent of which we learn from the fiscal records of Venice, consisted in a few holdings of real estate at Castelfranco in Trevisano. In 1585 he purchased a small estate at Santa Maria in Porto, not far from the Pineta of Ravenna. He also possessed a bank account representing approximately six thousand sequins. But what was that for a man who was the most famous and the most fertile artist of his time?

We have already given examples of his disinterestedness. Many a time he refused opportunities of great wealth. He even declined the offers made him by Philip II, who tried to lure him to Spain and would have entrusted him with decorating the Escurial.

It was about the period of his return to Venice that Veronese completed his celebrated picture: _The Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander after the Battle of Issus_, now in the National Gallery at London. The episode is well known; Darius III., King of Persia, conquered at Issus by Alexander, sends his wife and children to beg for clemency from the victor. Admitted to the conqueror's tent, the unfortunate wife perceives a warrior in resplendent garments whom she takes for Alexander, and throws herself at his feet. The warrior, however, is only Ephestion, Alexander's lieutenant and friend. The wife of Darius apologizes for her mistake, but Alexander raises her up and says: "You made no mistake, he also is Alexander."

Such is the historic theme. But what matters history to Veronese? Upon this classic subject he has built the most fantastic, the most improbable, and at the same time the most fascinating of his compositions. The picture was painted for the Pisani family which had given him hospitality, and every one of the figures contained in it represents a member of that household.

It is related that, in order to spare his hosts the necessity of thanking him or the obligation of making some return, he rolled up his canvas and slipped it behind his bed in such a way that it would not be discovered in his room until after his departure.

It is scarcely probable that Veronese could have painted so large a canvas--fourteen metres by seven--in the necessarily brief space of a friendly visit, or that he could have painted in his figures, which are all of them portraits, without the knowledge of the Pisani family. But the anecdote is so pretty that it is pleasant to accept it as true.

It was a direct descendant of the Venetian Procurator, Count Victor Pisani, who sold the painting to England in 1857.

THE DECORATION OF THE DUCAL PALACE

In 1577 a violent conflagration destroyed the greater part of the Ducal Palace. In this disaster all the pictures perished with which Tintoretto, Horatio the son of Titian, and Veronese, had decorated it.

Desiring to restore the palace promptly and give it a new splendour, the Senate appointed a committee, authorized to distribute orders among the painters and decorators of Venice. The competitors were numerous and eager to secure a chance to collaborate in so glorious an enterprise; and to this end they paid eager court to the committee. Veronese alone made no advances, being unwilling to appear solicitous. This dignified course was looked upon as excess of pride, and one day when Jacopo Contanari met him in the street he reproached him with it. Veronese replied that it was not his business to seek for honours but to be deserving of them, and that he had less skill in soliciting work than in executing it.

But they could not exclude Veronese, whose fame had now become universal. Accordingly he was chosen with Tintoretto, and to them were added Francisco Bassano and the younger Palma. The Ducal Palace is therefore a sort of museum of the works of these masters, and forms the most brilliant collection of paintings relating to the public life and the glorification of Venice.

Veronese was entrusted with the decoration of the great central oval of the ceiling, and the lateral panels. In these he painted the _Defence of Scutari_, the _Taking of Smyrna_, and the _Triumph of Venice_. This last named painting is considered by many as Veronese's crowning achievement.