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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana (spectators, above left) 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana (spectators, above right) 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana (serving men, left) 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana (serving men, right) 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana (serving men, center) 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana (wedding company, left) 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana (wedding company, right) 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana (wedding company, center) 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Paolo Veronese The Marriage at Cana (detail) (portraits of Veronese, Tintoretto, and Titian as musicians) 1562-63 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
Napoleon and Immense Paintings
A Balustrade Between Earth and Sky
The Meal
This is a canvas that, despite its dimensions, remained transportable. It was rolled and taken to France under Napoleon's orders during his conquest of Italy. At the Congress of Vienna, France was forced to return a great number of art works, but the wiliness of Talleyrand allowed the French to retain this one.
Veronese's painting only just fell within the capacity of the military conveyance. In Mantua, by contrast, there was an enormous Rubens on which the First Consul had fixed his choice. That canvas exceeded the dimensions that could be accommodated: soldiers therefore chopped part of it off. It remains in its mutilated state today.
Surrounding Space
The artist's stage-set is composed of two sequences of monumental Roman buildings, both receding in extreme perspective, but with two different vanishing points. The scale of the work makes it seem possible that the viewer might literally enter the picture space, which represents the ultimate in aspirational décor. Approaching the canvas, we see the portion directly before us but not the remainder, which recedes from our vision. This is the effect of all works that exceed certain dimensions. Vision functions on them differently. If the painting doesn't measure more than about one by two meters, we feel able to take in the whole at first sight. Much larger than that, and in order to grasp the entirety we need to retreat several steps, then tentatively advance again; we are manipulated into performing a dance before the piece. And then there are these truly gigantic pictures. If our viewing space is not itself equally outsized, everything is distorted.
A Balustrade Between Earth and Sky
This stage-set perspective construction, which we will see again in the work of Claude Lorrain, does not open onto a seacoast (as in Claude) but onto a sky inhabited by a campanile. The actors in this scene are costumed according to the fashions of Veronese's own milieu, fusing an earlier historical period with a later one.
Numerous animals are present. Beasts furnish nourishment to humans, but are also their companions. Dogs in particular abound. The dwarf serving as jester – a requisite component of elegant life in the 16th and 17th centuries – stands as a sort of intermediary between pets and servants. Birds are flying in the sky, but our access to that ideal territory is barred by a balustrade, below which the feast pursues its course.
The Meal
Veronese painted several Biblical meals: the one in the house of Simon, the one in the house of Levi, and (obviously) the Last Supper. A vital trope in the Gospels, the spiritually significant meal also appears in a number of other religions. The transformation during the marriage feast at Cana of water into wine is directly analogous to the effect produced by the painting, which permits the transformation of the actual, carrying it beyond itself and allowing us to savor a transcendant reality only accessible through certain works of art. In more direct terms, the transformation of water into wine foreshadows the Eucharist, the transubstantiation of wine into the blood of divine sacrifice.
The Musical Ensemble
Food is prepared on the terrace, and the nourishment must be brought down. In general at this period one assumes that kitchens occupied a lower level than dining areas. Here, the food comes from above. Tables are arranged in a rectangular arc, with a space left in the center, which serves as a stage. The company of diners become spectators, like us, but also auditors, since a troupe of musicians is present. Among these, it is believed that Veronese painted himself, along with fellow painters. Titian plays the bass viol, while Veronese and Tintoretto play violins da gamba. The eye listens.
– translated and adapted from Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (Paris: Flammarion, 2019)