Part 2 (2/2)

These rich merchants had had the palace adorned by the greatest painters in Venice. Giorgione and t.i.tian had decorated its walls not only within, but also on the exterior, where traces of the paintings can still be seen. Veronese was entrusted with four compositions, one of which is an allegory representing _Germany receiving the Imperial Crown_. It is believed that the canvas now in the Museum at Berlin, ent.i.tled _Jupiter, Fortune and Germany_, once formed part of the decoration of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. It was purchased at Verona in 1841. Veronese's celebrity, about the year 1580, had become world-wide. Every sovereign who prided himself on his art gallery wished to possess some of his work. The indefatigable artist endeavoured to satisfy them all; he even corresponded personally with several of them. For the Duke of Savoy, he painted _The Queen of Sheba Visiting Solomon_; to the Duke of Mantua, who had honoured him with his friends.h.i.+p, he sent a _Moses Saved from the Waters_; to the Emperor Rudolph II. he gave a _Cephale and Procris_ and a _Poem of Venus_. These last two canvases, of which the German Emperor was very proud, were taken from him by Gustavus Adolphus, when that triumphant conqueror pa.s.sed through Vienna.

Throughout his life, Veronese remained faithful to the pompous, brilliant, ornamental school of painting. Not that he was incapable of essaying other types, but because it was his own preference to paint ease and luxury on a broad scale. He sometimes had occasion to handle more vigorous subjects, and in this he was completely successful, as the magnificent painting ent.i.tled _Jupiter Destroying the Vices_ abundantly bears witness.

The surprise experienced in the presence of this n.o.ble work, executed with the energy of a master-hand, is surpa.s.sed only by admiration for the versatility of a genius which could at will adapt itself to unfamiliar formulas. This famous painting, proud and virile in style, was taken from Italy by the victorious Armies of France, and placed in Versailles in the chamber of Louis XIV., where for a long period it served as the ceiling decoration. It was finally removed and now hangs in the Louvre, in company of other masterpieces by the same artist.

THE LAST YEARS

The execution of his large official canvases did not prevent Veronese from responding to all the appeals which came to him from every side.

His unequalled activity, his prodigious facility made it possible for him to satisfy these demands. No one knows all the pictures which he painted for private individuals, nor all the frescoes with which he adorned certain dwellings that have since disappeared. Nevertheless what a formidable list the works of this painter would make if the attempt were made to draw up such a list without omissions! Ridolfi devotes not less than thirty pages to a simple enumeration of the pictures which Veronese painted for the neighbouring islands of Venice, such as Murano and Torcello, for the country house of the Grimani at Orlago, for that of the Duke of Tuscany at Artemino, or for the Palace of the Pisani. To Verona, to Brescia, to Vicenza, to Treviso, to Padua; to Venice also, to the Frari, to Ognissanti, to the Umilta, to San Francisco del Orto, to Santa Catarina, for which he painted his famous _Marriage of St. Catherine_, everywhere, in short, where they required him, he sent marvellous canvases, magic with colour and with life;--canvases for which to-day museums vie with each other for their weight in gold.

But Veronese was no longer young; he had entered well into the fifties; yet nothing in his craftsmans.h.i.+p betrayed fatigue or waning powers. A genius almost unique, he went steadily forward and no one could say of him, in the presence of his latest productions, what has so often been said of other ill.u.s.trious painters: ”That is a work of his old age!” Veronese had the rare privilege of remaining young to the end.

One day, while following a procession on foot, Veronese contracted a cold, and after a brief illness he died. His obsequies took place in the parish church of San Samuele, April 19, 1588. On that day he would have completed his sixtieth year.

When we remember that, up to the eve of his death, Veronese continued to paint with as steady a hand as at the age of twenty, his death seems premature, and it is only natural to deplore that this matchless artist should have failed to obtain the ripe age of t.i.tian. What masterpieces he might still have painted!

Such as they are, brilliant and luxuriant, his works remain the most abundant that have ever come from the palette of any one painter, and Veronese stands lastingly, in the history of Art, as the most amazing of all masters, both in colour and in composition.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE VIII.--THE VISION OF ST. HELENA

(In the National Gallery, London)

This picture has often been attributed to Zelotti, who was a friend and at one time a collaborator of Veronese. But the composition, the colouring, the finish of detail, and the sumptuousness of decoration betray the hand of the immortal author of the _Wedding at Cana_.]

THE WORKS OF PAOLO VERONESE

THE WORKS OF PAOLO VERONESE

FRANCE

PARIS (MUSEUM OF THE LOUVRE): The Wedding at Cana.--The Feast at the House of Simon the Pharisee.--Jupiter destroying the Vices.--Portrait of a Young Woman.--Susannah and the Elders.--The Disciples at Emmaus.--The Fainting of Esther.--The Burning of Sodom.--Two Holy Families.--Calvary.--Jesus Stumbling Beneath the Weight of the Cross.--St. Mark Crowning the Theological Virtues.--Jesus Curing Peter's Mother-in-law.

MONTPELLIER (MUSEUM): The Virgin in the Clouds.--The Marriage of St. Catherine.--St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata.

RENNES (MUSEUM): Perseus Delivering Andromeda.

LILLE (MUSEUM): Science and Eloquence.--The Martyrdom of St.

George.

ROUEN (MUSEUM): St. Barnabas Curing the Sick.

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