Paolo Veronese (1528-1588)

Sections of the exhibition

1. From Verona to Venice
2. 'Maestoso teatro': Architecture and Stage Design
3. Creative Process. Invention and Repetition
4. Allegory and Mythology
5. The Late Veronese
6. 'Haeredes Pauli' and Veronese Admirers

The exhibition

Following on from Titian (2003), Tintoretto (2007) and Lorenzo Lotto. Portraits (2018), with Paolo Veronese the Museo del Prado is now bringing to close an unrepeatable cycle of exhibitions of Venetian Renaissance painting, a cornerstone of its collection.

Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) was a painter who enjoyed extraordinary renown, both during his lifetime and in subsequent centuries; an artist with an all-embracing idea of art that encompassed countless aesthetic and cultural references which he translated to canvas with great formal and conceptual ease. He did so at a critical time for Venice, when religious tensions were surfacing along with the first symptoms of economic and political decline, which his brushes masterfully camouflaged. No other artist contributed more powerfully to recreating in images the ‘myth of Venice’ that has survived to the present day.

The exhibition is divided into six chronological and thematic sections.

SECTION 1: From Verona to Venice

The first, From Verona to Venice, focuses on his training in his native Verona, a city with a rich Roman past where local tradition coexisted alongside contributions from Venice (especially Titian) and central Italian artists such as Raphael and Parmigianino. Building on them, Veronese soon developed a style of his own characterised by formal and compositional elegance and contrasting colours, which facilitated his triumphant debut in Venice in 1551.

SECTION 2: 'Maestoso teatro': Architecture and Stage Design

The second section, ‘Maestoso Teatro’. Architecture and Stage Design, explores his understanding of space and storytelling, which involved combining the Venetian tradition with the theatrical and architectural notions of Andrea Palladio and Daniele Barbaro, and contrasts it with the alternative vision embodied by Jacopo Tintoretto and Sebastiano Serlio’s ideas on stage design. Particular attention is paid to the famous Feasts, sumptuous displays of the refinement and material culture of the Venetian patricians.

SECTION 3: Creative Process. Invention and Repetition

The third, Creative Process. Invention and Repetition, examines Veronese’s pictorial intelligence and how he ran one of the most productive and highest quality workshops of the time. This was made possible by his strict control of the creative process and skilful division of tasks, in which drawing played a fundamental role.

SECTION 4: Allegory and Mythology

The fourth section, Allegory and Mythology, shows his excellence in two fields particularly dear to the elites: allegory and mythological fables, where he proved to be the only artist capable of competing with Titian, enabling him to inherit his powerful clientele, both inside and outside Venice.

SECTION 5: The Late Veronese

The fifth section, The Late Veronese, addresses his final decade, when a significant change took place in his painting, with unstable compositions, darker colours and a focused and often symbolic use of light, in which the landscape takes on a new prominence. This transformation, which heralds the major pictorial achievements of the Baroque, stemmed from a variety of factors: some aesthetic, such as the impact of the contemporary oeuvre of Tintoretto and Jacopo Bassano; and others ‘environmental’, such as the religious climate following the Council of Trent.

SECTION 6: 'Haeredes Pauli' and Veronese Admirers

The final section surveys his legacy: ‘Haeredes Pauli’ and Veronese's Admirers. On the one hand, there were his relatives, who simply rehashed his models for a decade, going by the name ‘Haeredes Pauli’, and on the other, the truly talented artists who embraced and disseminated his legacy. The exhibition focuses on those who came immediately after him – El Greco, the Carracci and Peter Paul Rubens – though Veronese’s status as a ‘painters’ painter’ extended into the 20th century and influenced artists as diverse as Diego Velázquez, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Eugène Delacroix and Paul Cézanne. The show ends by recalling his exceptional popularity with European collectors, which is the ultimate reason why he is so superbly represented in the Prado’s collections.