Six distinctive group portraits are now the works for which he is best known. But aren’t they strange, set in comparison with contemporary paintings?
Veronese
Not an Impressionist by any means, he was a close friend of Whistler and Manet, who painted some of the major group portraits of the late 1800s.
First popularised for use with glue tempera, ‘canvas’ quickly developed into the first choice for oils. In Venice, canvases as large as tennis courts were used by Veronese and Tintoretto.
Western paintings of devils from Michelangelo to Fuseli show the great influence of Hieronymus Bosch.
The best of the 111 paintings shown in this series, to mark the half millennium which has elapsed since his birth.
His 8 Last Suppers from 1547 to around 1593 compared with contemporary versions by Titian, the Bassanos, and Veronese. A true feast.
In his final decade, he designed the vast ‘Paradise’ for the Doge’s Palace, and several great paintings, but probably painted relatively little himself.
Biography to the death of Darius the King of Persia, with superb paintings by Degas, Elisabetta Sirani, Altdorfer, Jan Brueghel the Elder, and more.
The less famous Wedding at Cana which preceded that of Veronese; two Assumptions, a Last Supper which still shocked Ruskin 300 years later, and episodes from the story of Saint Mark.
The story of Bathsheba and King David involves adultery and murder, and ultimately the triumph of power not virtue. Early paintings up to Artemisia Gentileschi.
