For Rafael Alberti, Paolo Veronese was the spring, Tintoretto the summer, and Titian corporeal clarities never imagined. Of the three axes of Venetian Renaissance painting, the sweetest and most overlooked is Veronese (1528-1588). Until the 18th century, he was one of the most appreciated artists of his time in European courts, even more valued than Titian. Felipe II invited him to Spain. Felipe IV owned several of his paintings. Veronese was at the pinnacle of painting for three centuries, died wealthy, maintained his legacy, and eventually faded. Preferences changed. Attention shifted to others. He lost power and grace, but retained the praise for color and painting without slamming doors. However, a change in aesthetic priorities pushed him to the shadows, although without Veronese, it is difficult to understand the strength and influence of the great Renaissance painting patented in Venice.
Born as Paolo Caliari, he lived for 60 years, 20 less than Tintoretto and 30 less than Titian. He was born in Verona, the son of a stonemason. He learned in the workshop of Antonio Badile (where he entered in 1541) and later in that of his father-in-law, Giovanni Francesco Caroto. He soon realized, with great insight, that color is simply color, but also something more. In 1551, he arrived in Venice to paint the altarpiece of the chapel in the church of San Francesco della Vigna, invited by the Giustanini family. He was 18 years old. And that's where it all began. The same everything that the Prado Museum now vindicates in a marvelous exhibition, titled simply "Paolo Veronese (1528-1588)," sponsored by the Axa Foundation and curated by the museum's director, Miguel Falomir. Forty-four paintings by the artist, but also works by Raphael, Parmigianino, Titian, Tintoretto, and others who saw him as a guiding light: El Greco, Carracci, Rubens, or his son Carletto, who died at 26.
The Prado's proposal (where around 15 pieces by Veronese or his workshop are preserved) not only restores the artist's central place in the Renaissance but also reveals the influence on other artists and unfolds the tranquil cultivation of the colorful garden of his painting. What happened then to lead to his oblivion: "In the 20th century, for example, the preference for other artists with more spectacular lives prevailed. Admiration for Caravaggio goes beyond his painting and feeds on his criminal biography," says Falomir. "The fascination with the bad ones has had better fortune. When we talk about Veronese, about his biography, he didn't cause any trouble. And that diminishes popular interest. His greatest virtue, social and artistic, is what in Italy they define as 'spazzatura.' That is: the art of hiding and making complex things appear simple. This elegance, somewhat jokingly, makes him the Cary Grant of Venetian artists of that time."
Veronese handled an extraordinary variety of resources: small works, medium format, large format, frescoes... "He was unequivocally a painter's painter," explains Falomir. Among the monumental pieces in the exhibition, 'The Supper at Emmaus' (1570) - borrowed from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan - stands out as one of the wonders of his work. A piece of balance, prodigious color management, and figures. "Through paintings like these, we can affirm that he is one of the most important artists in Western painting," says Falomir. His palette is one of the boldest, of a purity that when unleashed, shows in simplicity the complex ties it hides. Much of his life he worked in a sulfurous atmosphere of religious tensions and the early signs of an economic and political crisis that he disguised in his work, further enhancing the myth of Venetian artists.
The exhibition is divided into six chronological and thematic sections covering Veronese's background and influence. From his origins to the handling of scenography, from frescoes (with the plaster works of 'Temperance' and 'Justice,' which decorated the Soranzo villa) to the exploration of the creative process by investigating the workshop, one of the most fruitful and high-quality workshops of the time, as well as the sagacity in mythological and allegorical representation, and the last Veronese, which anticipates the symbolic and vibrant use of light that heralds the Baroque. "His mythological nude figures are as important as those of Titian and Tintoretto," notes the curator.
It is difficult to understand the core whim of the royal collections that underpin the Prado Museum without Veronese's work. Also, his pivotal role in understanding the artistic taste of the elites of the time and his decisive influence on Spanish painting of the Golden Age. With this exhibition, the Madrid museum also concludes an extraordinary cycle of two decades of study and exhibition of the great Venetian Renaissance trinity: Titian (the wise), Tintoretto (the infernal), and Veronese (the gentle).
Returning to Alberti, Veronese also brings the hidden blue of the skies.