Paolo Veronese: Difference between revisions

[[File:Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari) (Italian - Portrait of a Man - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|alt=caption|''Portrait of a Man'', Paolo Veronese (c. 1577), thought to be a self-portrait]]

== Early life ==

Born in 1528, Paolo Caliari became known as Veronese after his birthplace, Verona, Italy. The Caliari ancestors were artists, and Paolo’s father determined that his son should become a sculptor. So Paolo was first apprenticed as a stonecutter, his father’s trade. With unusual dexterity for one so young, he changed mere clay into remarkable statuettes.

Then, at the age of fourteen, he showed such a marked interest in painting that he was apprenticed to a painter named Antonio Badile, whose daughter Elena he later married. From Badile, Veronese derived a sound basic painting technique as well as a passion for paintings in which people and architecture were integrated.  He had found his vocation in painting and devoted himself to master the techniques of Dürer and other renaissance artists.

In 1553, at the age of twenty-five, Veronese went to Venice and launched on a long collaboration with the Venetian authorities in connection with the decoration of different parts of the Palazzo Ducale. The walls of the imposing palaces in Venice were often adorned with murals and works of art by Venetian masters.  

One might suppose that in this atmosphere the sensitive Paolo would naturally absorb and imitate the accomplishments of his contemporaries who had set the standard for the world. But not so! Veronese was a spiritual revolutionary who waged battle against the forces of anti-life in the arts. He did not conform to tradition but was an exponent of a beauty distinctively his own. It was a momentum gathered from many embodiments of the remote past.  

In 1555, Veronese began the decoration of San Sebastiano, the church that was to become his burial place. His painting ''The Coronation of the Virgin'' rated him second to none among Venetian artists. From this time on, successive masterpieces emanated from his brush without interruption. All of Venice was astounded by his genius. He became a painter of mythical and historical figures as well as religious scenes. His biblical characters were beautifully garbed and set against a background of Venetian grandeur.  

But Veronese—in his expression of refined innocence, of joy and the sweeping grandeur of the celestial—reached an apex of artistic and spiritual insight that helped catapult Western art beyond the heights of the Renaissance.  

== The ascension of Paul the Venetian ==

Near the close of his earthly life as the Venetian artist, he was advised by his guru, that he, Paolo, had earned his release from the schoolroom of earth and was ready to enter the realms of immortality. In 1588, Paolo contracted a fever and, after a few days of illness, died on April 9. His brother and sons buried him in San Sebastiano, where a bust was placed above his grave.  

: And you shall hear the words of the Father: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things.<ref>Matt. 25:21.</ref> Rise to the levels of the kingdom of God and let others follow in your wake!”<ref>{{POWref|38|34|, August 6, 1995}}</ref>  

The consensus of human appraisal in the mid-sixteenth century considered that Veronese’s ''Triumph of Venice'' was the acme of his expression in painting. But this was not to be. Within the majesty of his being, greater majesty was pulsating for expression.  

== A reflection on his life by the ascended master ==

: Now I speak to you because of some of the canvases that I created. There were times when I felt pressed, through the need for my livelihood, to create on canvas some wondrous object in order that mankind might be able to glory in it. And yet I was driven, in a sense, to a pensive mood whereby I could create at will a masterpiece only to find that when I came to create it, the inspirational spark was not present. And I found it could not be invoked. I found that the harder I tried, the more difficult became the decision as to just what I could paint, for I could not paint a commonplace item. It must be stirring and magnificent. This, then, is why I so well understand how the human hearts of men, at various times when the crossroads of life seem particularly difficult, stand in wonder and amazement as to just which way they shall turn.

: I would like to remind all who are here that, after you have poured out all of your love to God—according to the capacity of your own soul—then is the hour when you should await, expectantly, to receive the love of God in return. It is as though an emptiness comes to you, for you have given your all; and then that all comes back to you charged with his love. The love of God flows in mighty waves, sweeping o’er you as the beating sea against the cliffs of being. And the foam intrigues your consciousness as its breakers of many patterns unfold multitudinous and wondrous spraylets of beauty.<ref>Paul the Venetian, July 6, 1963.</ref>

== Sources ==