Paolo Veronese

1528 - 1588 • Italian • Painter • Late Renaissance

"We painters take the same liberties as poets and madmen take." - Paolo Veronese

Painting in VENICE at the same time as TINTORETTO (though originally from Verona), Veronese created work that was as radiant and delightful as Tintoretto's was dark and troubling. Each painted the Last Supper, and these works provide a striking comparison. Tintoretto 's, of 1592-94, is a tragic but transcendental moment; Veronese painted a scene of such luxury and incidental (even humorous) detail that he was called before the Inquisition in 1573 on account of it. His comment, quoted above, was part of his self-defense for having set the scene as a sumptuous banquet with "buffoons, drunkards, dwarfs, Germans, and similar vulgarities." The result was that he made a few changes, including renaming the picture Feast in the House of Levi (1573). In general, Veronese's intensely colorful compositions recorded the wealth and pageantry of Venetian life. For the ceiling of the Hall of the Great Council in the Doge's Palace he painted Triumph of Venice (1579-82), in which the Republic of Venice is personified as a great queen on her throne being crowned by angels amid illusionistic architecture that climbs into the sky, a bevy of spectators, allegorical figures, and prancing horses seen from behind. As were CORREGGIO'S ceilings, this composition was studied avidly by Veronese's BAROQUE successors.