Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/194

Rh y E R V E R the luxury of environment, the air and light, the graceful and abundant poise of action and of limb, the rhythmic movement, the sweet and lordly variegation of tint. The pictorial inspiration is entirely that of the piercing and comprehensive eye and the magical hand not of the mind ; for Veronese yields none but negative results to the touchstone either of exalted and profound imagina tion or of searching and constructive common-sense. The human form and face are given with decorous comeliness, often with beauty. He constantly painted his figures and faces from the life, thus securing range and precision of character ; but of individual apposite expression there is next to none, and of reasoned realistic contact with the professed subject matter whether in general disposition, in costume and accessory, or in attitude and effort of mind there is frequently no trace at all. In fact, Paolo Veronese is pre eminently a painter working pictorially, and in no wise amenable to a literary or rationalizing standard : you can neither exhibit nor vindicate his scenic apparatus by any transcription into words. He enjoys a sight much as Ariosto enjoys a story, and displays it in form and colour with a zest like that of Ariosto for language and verse. As we have already indicated, he was supreme in represent ing, without huddling or confusion, numerous figures in a luminous and diffused atmosphere, while in richness of draperies and trans parency of shadows he surpassed all the other Venetians or Italians. In gifts of this kind Rubens alone could be pitted against him. In the moderation of art combined with its profusion he far excelled Itubens ; for, dazzling as is the first impression of a great work by Veronese, there is in it, in reality, as much of soberness and serenity as of exuberance. By variety and apposition he produces a most brilliant effect of colour ; and yet his hues are seldom bright. He hoards his primary tints and his high lights, like a rich miser who knows how to play the genial host on occasion. A colossal spon taneity, to which a great result is only a small effort of faculty, is the chief and abiding impression derived from contemplating his works. He very rarely produced small pictures : the spacious was liis element. Of all Veronese s paintings the one which has obtained the greatest world-wide celebrity is the vast Marriage at Cana, now in the Louvre. It contains about a hundred and twenty figures or heads those in the foreground being larger than life. Several of them are portraits. Among the personages specified (some of them probably without sufficient reason) are the Marquis del Vasto, Queen Eleanor of France, Francis I., Queen Mary of England, Sul tan Soleyman I., Vittoria Colonna, Charles V., Tintoretto, Titian, the elder Bassano, Benedetto Caliari, and Paolo Veronese himself (the figure playing the viol). It is impossible to look at this picture without astonishment ; it enlarges one s conception of what pic torial art means and can do. The only point of view from which it fails is that of the New Testament narrative ; for there is no more relation between the Galilean wedding arid Veronese s court- banquet than between a true portrait of Lazarus and a true portrait of Dives. This stupendous performance was executed for the re fectory of the monastery of S. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, the con tract for it being signed in June 1562 and the picture completed in September 1563. Its price was 324 silver ducats ( = 160), along with the artist s living-expenses and a tun of wine. There are five other great banquet-pictures by Caliari, only inferior in scale and excel lence to this of Cana. One of them is also in the Louvre, a Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee, painted towards 1570-75 for the refectory of the Servites in Venice. A different version of the same theme is in the Brera Gallery of Milan. The Feast of Simon the Leper, 1570, was done for the refectory of the monks of St Sebastian, and the Feast of Levi (St Matthew), 1573, now in the Venetian academy, for the refectory of the monks of St John and St Paul. In each instance the price barely exceeded the cost of the materials, so different were the conditions under which an artist even of the first celebrity, as Veronese then was, worked in Italy in the 16th century from the conditions prevailing at the present day. The Louvre contains ten other specimens of Veronese, notably the Susanna and the Elders, and the Supper at Emmaus. In the London National Gallery are six examples. The most beautiful is St Helena s Vision of the Cross, founded upon an en graving by Marcantonio after a drawing supposed to be the work of Raphael. Far more famous than this is the Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander the Great after the Battle of Isstis the captives having mistaken Hephfestion for Alexander. It was bought for 13,560, and has even been termed (very unreasonably) the most celebrated of all Veronese s works. The principal figures are portraits of the Pisani family. It is said that Caliari was ac cidentally detained at the Pisani villa at Este, and there painted this work, and, on quitting, told the family that he had left behind him an equivalent for his courteous entertainment. Another picture in the National Gallery, Europa and the Bull, is a study for the large painting in the imperial gallery of Vienna, and re sembles one in the ducal palace of Venice. The Venetian aca demy contains fourteen works by Veronese. One of the finest it is indeed a singular and choice masterpiece is a comparatively small picture of the Battle of Lepanto, with Christ in heaven pouring light upon the Christian fleet and darkness on the Turkish. In the Uffizi Gallery of Florence are two specimens of exceptional beauty the Annunciation and Esther Presenting her self to Ahasuerus ; for delicacy and charm this latter work yields to nothing that the master produced. In Verona St George and St Julian, in Brescia the Martyrdom of St Afra, and in Padua the Martyrdom of St Justina are works of leading renown. The draw ings of Veronese are very fine, and he took pleasure at times in engraving on copper. The brother and sons of Paolo already mentioned, and Battista Zelotti, were his principal assistants and followers. Benedetto Caliari, the brother, who was about ten years younger than Paolo, is reputed to have had a very large share in designing and execut ing the architectural backgrounds which form so conspicuous a feature in Paolo s compositions. If this is not overstated, it must be allowed that a substantial share in Paolo s fame accrues to Benedetto ; for not only are the backgrounds admirably schemed and limned, but they govern to a large extent the invention and distribution of the groups. Of the two sons Carlo (or Carletto), the younger, is the better known. He was born in 1570, and was the favourite of his father, who sent him to study under Bassano. He produced various noticeable works, and died young in 1596. Gabriele, born in 1568, attended, after Carlo s death, almost en tirely to commercial affairs ; his works in painting are rare. All three were occupied after the death of Paolo in finishing his pictures left uncompleted. See Ridolfl, Le Meravigtie dell Arte, &c.; Dal Pozzo, Vite de Pittorl Veronesl, &c. ; Zanetti, Delia Pittura Venezlana, &c. ; and Lanzi. (W. M. R.) VERONICA, ST. According to theBollandists(4thFeb.), Veronica or Berenice was a pious woman of Jerusalem who, moved with pity as Jesus bore His cross to Golgotha, gave Him her kerchief that He might wipe the drops of agony from His brow. The Lord accepted the offering and after using it handed it back to her, bearing the image of His face miraculously impressed upon it. According to various forms of the legend, Veronica is identified with the niece of Herod the Great, with the woman whom Christ healed of an issue of blood (Mark v. 25 sq.; Matt. ix. 20 sq.), with a woman who afterwards, along with fifty others, young men and maidens, suffered martyrdom at Antioch, and with the beloved of one Amator, who is described as &quot; famulus S. Virginis Mariee et Josephi, et Domini bajulus ac nutricius,&quot; who afterwards became an ascetic and died at Roquemadore (Rupes Amatoris) near Bordeaux. Current tradition in the Roman Church has it that Veronica was able to heal Tiberius of a grievous sickness with her napkin, and that the emperor, thus convinced of the divinity of Christ, forth with sent Pilate into exile. This napkin (sudariuni) was in the time of Pope John VII. (705) in the church of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, but is now in St Peter s, though possession of it is indeed claimed also by Milan and Jaen (Spain). The Bollandist form of the story cannot be traced further back than to about the second quarter of the 15th century ; but in a MS. of the 8th century, now in the Vatican, Veronica is said to have painted, or caused to be painted, the portrait of Christ after she had been healed by Him. In the 13th century we find the miraculous picture itself spoken of as &quot; figura Domini qutu Veronica dicitur,&quot; and this has suggested to archaeologists the ques tion whether the legend of the woman Veronica may not have arisen by confusion out of a totally distinct legend as to a vera icon (ec /cwv), such as that which, according to Greek tradition, Jesus sent with an autograph letter to Abgarus of Edessa. St Veronica is commemorated on Shrove Tuesday, but her festival is not of obligation. See Karl Pearson s Die Fronica, tin Bcitrag zur GcscMclite drs ChristusUldes in Mittclalter (Strasburg, 1887), which contains a discussion of the evolution of the story and much interesting matter relating to the hymnological, liturgical, and artistic aspects of the subject. VERRES (c. 112-43 B.C.), whose name has been branded with everlasting infamy by the speeches of Cicero, was the bad son of a bad father. The elder Verres was an old hand at jobbery and bribery, and some of his son s ill-gotten gains found their way into his pocket. He had some sort of connexion with the dictator Sulla, and it was through this probably that he rose to be a senator; possibly, though