Jul 3
Liberal Arts Blog — The Biggest Painting in the Louvre is Paolo Veronese’s “The Wedding Feast at Cana”
Liberal Arts Blog — Friday is the Joy of Art, Architecture, Design, Film, and All Things Visual Day
Today’s Topic: The Biggest Painting in the Louvre is Paolo Veronese’s “The Wedding Feast at Cana”
Christ’s first miracle was the transformation of water into wine on order from his mother, Mary. “Come on, you can do it!” “We’ve run out of wine!” This magic moment has been depicted many times in classical art but perhaps most extravagantly by Paolo Veronese whose painting measures roughly 32 feet by 22 feet. It is located in the largest room in the Louvre — oddly opposite the diminutive “Mona Lisa.” The lavishness of the painting is quite breathtaking. Today, a few more notes. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THE BENEDICTINE MONKS OF SAN GIORGIO MONASTERY IN VENICE COMMISSIONED IT IN 1563
1. The painting was to be placed on a wall of the “refectory” (dining hall)
2. The guy in the white tunic playing the viola da braccio is the artist himself. Titian is in red and plays the violone.
3. Having attended a Benedictine high school attached to a Benedictine monastery in Washington DC, I must confess a visceral negative reaction to the stark contrast between the Benedictine vow of poverty and the luxury and excess depicted.
THE WEDDING GUESTS INCLUDE MANY HISTORICAL FIGURES — EG. SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT, HOLY EMPEROR CHARLES V, AND FRANCIS I OF FRANCE
1. Imagine an updated version from, say, 2020 featuring Trump, Putin, Angela Merkel, and Deng Xiaoping.
2. It was Napoleon’s Revolutionary Army that liberated the painting so to speak and brought it to Paris.
3. “During the Nazi Occupation of France (1940–45), the 382-year-old painting was rolled up for storage, and continually transported to hiding places throughout the south of France.”
CONTROVERSIES RELATED TO THE RESTORATION OF THE PAINTING
1. “Organized as the Association to Protect the Integrity of Artistic Heritage (APIAH), artists protested against the restoration of the 426-year-old painting, and publicly demanded to be included in the matter, which demand the Louvre Museum denied.”
2. “To the APIAH, especially controversial was the Museum’s removal of a rouge marron (red hue) over-painting of the tabard coat of the house steward, who is standing (left-of-centre) in the foreground supervising the black, servant-boy handing a glass of the new, red wine to the bridegroom.”
3. “The removal of the red hue revealed the original, green color of the tabard. In opposing that aspect of the painting’s restoration, the APIAH said that Veronese, himself, had changed the tabard’s color to rouge marron instead of the green color of the initial version of the painting.”
FOOTNOTE — PAOLO VERONESE (1528–1588), THE TRIO, AND THE “FEAST IN THE HOUSE OF LEVI”
1. One of a trio of Venetian artists of the “Cinqucento.” (1500s) The other two: Titian (1488–1546), considered the greatest, and Tintoretto (1518–1594).
2. Above is Veronese’s “The Feast in the House of Levi” (1573) which “featured people and animals that the Inquisition perceived as heretical. The Inquisitors’ investigation found no heresy, yet ordered Paolo Veronese to re-title the painting something other than The Last Supper, the original title.”
3. This painting, too was commissioned for the wall of a refectory — this time that of the Dominican Friary of the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice.
NB: “He has always been appreciated for “the chromatic brilliance of his palette, the splendor and sensibility of his brushwork, the aristocratic elegance of his figures, and the magnificence of his spectacle”, but his work has been felt “not to permit expression of the profound, the human, or the sublime”, and of the “great trio” he has often been the least appreciated by modern criticism. Nonetheless, “many of the greatest artists … may be counted among his admirers, including Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo, Delacroix, and Renoir.” (see second link)
The Wedding at Cana — Wikipedia
The Feast in the House of Levi — Wikipedia
THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY ARE AVAILABLE HERE:
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ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, 11/17/20
YOUR TURN
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