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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Seduction of Splendor: Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese
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The Wedding Feast at Cana. 1563. Musee de Louvre. Paris.
This 16th century work by Veronese, a late Renaissance/early Mannerist artist, portrays the Biblical story of the first of Christs miracles, at the suggestion of his mother, when she sees the feast has run out of wine. A simple story that Veronese expresses as a huge work engulfs the wall where it is mounted in the Louvre.
Giving you an idea of its size...
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Wedding Feast at Cana evokes the inordinate wealth and sumptuous tastes of the Venetian republic in all of its resplendent glory. Employing loose, expressive brushwork and lush colorito alla Veneziana this expansive canvas gives us a rich theatrical tableau of the artists time: Venice never had it so good, you could say. It was untroubled by the woes that beset the Florentine republic, earning Venice the title of La Serenissima. Venice was supremely expert at working the trade routes to the East, bringing rare spices, silk and fine artifacts to its people who were happy to be where they were and who they were. To do this Veronese employs the costly pigments that were brought to Venice from the Orient: yellow-oranges, vivid reds and lapis lazuli. We see the turbaned and bejeweled exoticism of the men and the sumptuously adorned women (one of whom holds a famed golden toothpick" in her mouth -- for more see http://www.kcet.org/living/food/the-nosh/the-spectacle-of-renaissance-dining.html). The majestic fluted columns on the upper level suggest the architecture of Veroneses contemporary, Palladio. No less beautiful are the sensuously veined marble columns below them. This painting celebrates that brief, shining moment, both in social history and in religious terms.
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The mother of Christ, dressed in such drabness that she stands out among the rich flamboyance around her, is pictured sitting next to her son in the center of the painting and they bear halos in the style of that eras religious art. Christ gazes out directly at the viewer -- part of the scene and yet apart from it. Above him a butcher is cutting meat while more is seen arriving from between the upper columns to the viewers right. Art historians believe that the meat is lamb and is meant to be a religious reference to Christ as the Lamb of God.
The credenza at left is an important feature in this art, in terms of its social history. For this is where the excessive display of the father of the brides wealth (silver works of art, plates and silverware which was a new addition at that time) would have been located. These alliances were of course important in the pursuit of the Venetian Republics further exploits into finding, and consolidating, wealth into a few Venetian families -- key to domestic stability in the citys government and culture.
A wine taster in a magnificent white satin robe with gold trim, in exaggerated contrapposto, studies the color of the wine in his beautiful wide mouthed glass -- Veroneses tribute to the art of glass making that Venice is rightfully proud of.
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The musicians in the center are visual artists of the day playing music, suggesting a harmonizing of the two arts. That is an old Titian on the violincello, Tintoretto and Veronese himself play the violas, and Bassano is shown playing the flute.
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The magnificent Salukis in front of the musicians are a treat. Look more closely, though. In the entire painting, I count four dogs, one cat and one green parrot. Do you?
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It was a Benedictine Order that originally commissioned this painting for the refectory wall of its monastery in one of the Venetian islands. And aptly so, as hospitality is a major dictum of that Order. It was from there that the painting was cut in half, rolled up and carried off to Paris by Napoleons soldiers in the late 18th century. By 1815 when Napoleon was defeated, the painting was deemed too fragile to make the trip back to Italy. It had been stitched back together but has suffered from several mishaps and war related events over the years. The one and a half ton picture remains in the Louvre today, just across from Leonardos Gioconda.
Because of the pictures original placement, the artist may have refrained to showing food on the plates (only showing platters of fruit...a nice inclusion of quince, a symbol of marriage, appears prominently), fearing that it would be considered an example of the deadly sin of gluttony. Instead, the feasts opulence was implied by the silverware and folded linen napkins, a stylishly fashionable latest thing in Venice at that time. Of course, the Bible story gets overwhelmed in Veroneses interpretation... the scriptural account would suggest a smaller event with simpler food, taking place in a dusty town in Galilee.
Art philosopher Arthur C. Danto observes that the Veronese color values disappeared from painting almost immediately after him in favor of the technique of chiarascuro that defines the the Old Master style of the Baroque that swept Europe after the Counter-Reformation...the strategy was to heighten feeling by enabling the light to fall from an almost mystical source upon the figures it touched. Against these ambitions, Veroneses art was like walking outdoors, under blue skies...
Veroneses work influenced the colorist artists from the Romantics through to Matisse. Delacroix wrote that the artist was the only one to have caught the whole secret of nature. The irony is that this scene of bright blue skies and puffy clouds with soaring birds was, in fact, the setting sun on an era of art. But it is surely a brilliant one at that.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,836 posts)Giovanni Gabrieli was at work slightly later, but his music embodies the opulence of Venice, like this painting. Quite a party, that.
Oh, yeah, the cat is at lower right, pawing at a big urn-ish object.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Gabrieli is just wonderful. That was a treat!
Solly Mack
(90,785 posts)K&R
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Life size perspective! The realism and detail are amazing!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)on its face when the Louvre was moving it causing more cuts in the canvas that had to be repaired. When I researched the history I was amazed.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Thank you CTyankee! I LOVE it! Wow! I can only imagine the horrified looks when they dropped it! Imagine the SOUND it made? Probably like a thunderclap!
These are the kind of things that make me remember why I got a degree in History, never will know it all or even a fraction - but what we do learn keeps us childlike imo in our amazement and marvel.
I'm still stuck at WOW.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)accidents that can befall these wonderful beautiful works...
Rex
(65,616 posts)I know they stole a huge amount of art and that the Louve while not ancient is still hundreds of years old. Now that I think about it, it is amazing IT is still there and standing!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)precautions with their precious art, this one included. The Mona Lisa was replaced with a copy and the real one was driven around in a truck in France to keep it moving and in different places so as not to attract the Germans (who would have carried it off in a second).
it's kinda hard to schlep around a painting of this size. But, yes, it has been in the Louvre ever since Napoleon stole it...
I remember reading that Napoleon had the Mona Lisa moved to his bedroom in the Tuileries Palace. What an ego!!!
displacedtexan
(15,696 posts)There's a bench for viewing, and I've sat there studying that painting many times. most people line up to pass by the Mona Lisa, but I find this work utterly fascinating! Thanks for posting this! I can almost smell the floor's distinctive wood soap odor.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I have done thanks to modern photography and Google. You can see minute things, like that golden toothpick. I happen to LOVE social history so the back story on that was a great find when I was researching this.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)It's so beautiful, my eyes teared up a bit. I get strange about art.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Starry Night had me blubbering once. I felt like I GOT it, and then it left me.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I couldn't stop the tears and I don't know why to this day...
bravenak
(34,648 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)of course, my trip had been art heavy all over the Netherlands and I had seen some fantastic art...my guess is that I was on "overload" and just broke down at that moment...it was the last day of that trip...
bravenak
(34,648 posts)To me art and the arts are necessary for life. Without beauty and emotion there is no reason to exist. One day I'm going to take a trip to see all the art that I love in person. I'll probably spend most of the time tearing up too. So exciting. Art soothes the soul.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)see the great European masterpieces.
I'm winding down now but boy, what a ride that was!
ChazInAz
(2,572 posts)That painting got me. Standing in that darkened room in the Hermitage, with his last few paintings spotlighted. (This was a few years ago, when the Van Gogh Museum was closed, and everything relocated to the Hermitage.)
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)ananda
(28,876 posts)Back in the 70's -- one day I decided to go to the Rice Art History Library
where Dominic de Menil had relocated, in order to study the paintings of
Bosch and Brueghel. As I was poring over the pictures, I was also reading
the annotated critical section in the back of the book where comments from
art critics could be perused.
There was one comment on The Marriage Feast at Cana that was just hilarious,
made by someone with the equally hilarious name of Phlange Murphy, who said
that Bosch's painting was "the psycho-sexual manifestation of the circumcision
ritual." This was, of course, the ... ahem ... "Freudian" interpretation. Lol
I just couldn't not remember that one!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,699 posts)Thank you for bringing it here for us, and for detailing its many features.
It's not only a great history of art lesson, but also a history lesson. I'm so glad the Nazis didn't run off with it.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,699 posts)Like all the other tourists, I made a beeline for the Mona Lisa!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)get closer to it, so it is probably a drawback to the Veronese...one gets tired of standing around. Plus, how can you possibly see the entire canvas without a ladder? And it's a complicated picture. Nobody can "take it in" without visiting it several times and getting photos of what you can't see. Even so, I had to use my magnifier to find the little obscurities that are always so much fun in these compositions...
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Response to CTyankee (Original post)
wolfie001 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)Thanks CTyankee.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)All is there. Everything.
My strongest impression is, as you put it, ".. Christ gazes out directly at the viewer -- part of the scene and yet apart from it."
In the world but not of it. To me, this is the meaning of real consciousness. There are no longer any attachments. The only suffering left is one's own intentional suffering.
Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)mean by "intentional suffering"?
pangaia
(24,324 posts)suffering due to our condition in the world - our misfortune, difficulties, our self-pity, our negative emotions. Our attachment to these things, and many, many others, causes us suffering.
.
Intentional suffering being that which we accept, even cause, in our search to know ourselves, work on our inner growth, work on 'becoming,' gaining consciousness, to awaken. Working to help others.
To my mind, this was the suffering of Jesus.
Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)I was confused and I thought that you meant people in general.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)His sense of being alone in the crowd, just quietly "there."
I was thinking of you when I looked more closely at the musicians. The instruments are such works of art all on their own. Yale School of Music often has concerts featuring the earlier period instruments and works written for them. Yale also combines the joint efforts of the School of Music and the Divinity School for some sacred music projects. I remember they did one on Hildegarde of Bingen, whose music survives today because she wrote it down (early form of notation though). I did a paper on her in my final Master's project. Nothing like living with a 12th century nun and her world for a period of your studies...LOL...
pangaia
(24,324 posts)is that they are viols, or gambas (would that be gambi?), or viola de gamba.. depending on semantics.
They all had frets and the earlier ones, 13th century or so, were played kind of on the lap-- like the 2 on the left. The later 15th and 16th century versions were usually played between the legs, like the one on the right.
I always find it interesting, the placing of older, historical events, or myths, in a modern context- such as what I have now learned about several paintings of this Biblical story - thanks to you. Or the many versions of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastion including Mishima's 'self-portrait,' ), etc.
It happens in music as well, with both historical events/stories AND older pieces being re-interpreted or re-done... just one example being Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite. The tunes, and pretty much the chord progressions, are from Pergolesi and of course Pulcinella is the classic Neapolitan commedia dell'arte figure....
But, this painting is.. so monumental. It would take more than a lifetime to 'see' it all.
This also, along with the Rothkos I mentioned earlier, is one I could see hanging in my living room. Of course it wouldn't quite fit.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Last edited Sat May 23, 2015, 10:26 AM - Edit history (1)
never seen it written that way, always with the anglicized "s" to imply plural...but my Italian is rusty...
I love blending poetry with art so harmonizing painting and music was just endearing to me when I revisited this work to write an essay on it. Perhaps the artists in the work actually WERE accomplished musicians...who knows? It makes some sense in the context of the term "Renaissance man."
ON EDIT: my Italian really sucks...just realized that the plural of viola would be viole. The plural refers to the instrument, not the "gamba" which means leg in Italian.
countryjake
(8,554 posts)Another tiny dog is on the lap of who I assume might be the groom. And the one with his head stuck thru the balustrade up to the left, right below that man's head floating way out over the railing.
Judging from what all Veronese depicts in this massive painting, I think it could actually have been that cat who did the water-to-wine changing.
Thanks for sharing, CTyankee, very nice.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)worse and worse! But I did see the tiny one (to me it looked like a cat) on the right.
The cat clawing the big wine jug is adorable...you may be right in your interpretation!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)countryjake
(8,554 posts)Can you see the white roses that I think were tossed by the leaning woman whose arm is stretched out, upper right? I saw that white thing sticking out on one of those fluted columns and had to get out my magnifying glass to see that it's flowers.
There's another falling directly below that one and the seated fellow dressed in yellow is bent backwards looking up at it, while the guys on either side of him are also gazing upward. Nothing is visible on the table, but I like to think that a third stem of roses must have plopped directly onto yellow-turban guy's plate, ha!
I wonder if he added those subtle symbols for Mary as an afterthought, once he realized how many (frowned-upon) critters he'd already painted on his picture. The roses do seem to be just stuck in there.
CTyankee, this is the sort of painting that I could crawl right into, especially now learning from you how incredibly big it actually is.
Thanks again!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)AND using a magnifier.
Veronese did get into a bit of trouble with one of his large canvases, originally a Last Supper. He had to face an Inquisitor and said essentially he painted what he saw as an artist, then changed the title (and subject, sort of) to Feast in the House of Levi. That seemed to be the end of it, primarily, I think, because Venice wasn't as hardassed as Florence which had Savonarola and other unpleasant people and events in the name of the true faith.
irisblue
(33,023 posts)blogslut
(38,016 posts)The sky = the backdrops. The platforms = the balcony. Painted flats = the columns.
Jesus is upper/center stage. Not exactly the strongest position blocking-wise, that belongs to those two dogs. But the artist gives Christ a nice "focused spotlight".
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)consumption noted in these lavish productions. Botticelli did one of a wedding feast in similar fashion (but earlier than Veronese).
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jmnzgv7gTWs/UzP76ki8rNI/AAAAAAAAEuY/HxDwPZqBEdo/s1600/1+Botticelli+Wedding+Feast.jpeg
To further explain my previous comment, I'm not disparaging the grandeur displayed in the painting. When I say it looks like a theatrical production, I mean it literally looks like how such a scene would be set and staged were it to be presented in a box-stage (3-walled) theater - which is really interesting because that kind of stage didn't exist in the 1500's. It just struck me how much the painting looks like it could a theatrical production when the artist had no frame (ha!) of reference.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)in his own 17th century way...
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Thanks for the post.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)damn work firewall is blocking the pics.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)Paladin
(28,272 posts)Thank you for the nice compliment...Maybe I'll ask Skinner for a little "elevation honorarium."
Codeine
(25,586 posts)A welcome learning moment, and what a delightful break from negativity, squabbling, and cynicism.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I always loved doing research and I find such new things in it. So trust me, it is a delight for me as well...