Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice at the National Gallery

We're not exactly starved of paintings by Paolo Veronese (1528-1588). The National Gallery owns ten. You can't miss them. They're as big as billboards. Yet, you may have passed these widescreen depictions of Biblical and mythological scenes - paintings like the epic 'The Family of Darius before Alexander' (1565-'67) - on the way to the National's more celebrated treasures without pausing to stop. Because, despite his brilliance, Veronese's star shines a little less brightly than his Venetian contemporaries, Tintoretto and Titian, and certainly without the intensity of painters who arrived on the scene immediately after him, such as Caravaggio.

Xavier Salomon, curator of the first ever Veronese retrospective in the UK, has a theory as to why. And, weirdly, it's partly down to the work's unfettered flamboyance. 'We've used the word "magnificence" in the exhibition title,' Salomon explains. 'You have these over-the-top scenes - architecture, fabrics, ways of dressing and so on - but they're pretty alien to us today. That's why I think Veronese has fallen out of favour. We respond more easily to someone like Caravaggio, who is much more about simplicity and iconic images.'

It could also be due to the fact that, unlike Caravaggio, whose lowlife dalliances are part of his legend, Veronese was a wholesome lad from Verona, distinguishable only by his genius. 'Frankly, he had a boring life,' says Salomon. 'He was born, he studied as a painter, he got married, he had a happy family, he kept painting, he died. Full stop.'

The one note of intrigue in Veronese's vanilla existence came after he completed a whopping version of the Last Supper for the refectory of a Venetian convent. Featuring cavorting jesters, soldiers supping on the sly (and dressed like Germans), cats, dogs and parrots, the 12m-long painting aroused the suspicions of the Catholic church, which hauled Veronese before the Inquisition to explain himself. Veronese stood his ground, refusing to alter his work but, resourcefully, changed its title from 'The Last Supper' to the less contentious 'The Feast in the House of Levi' (1573).



According to Salomon, Veronese was simply painting for his main market. 'Venice at that time was the most cosmopolitan city in the world. It was incredibly wealthy but also famous for its parties, its courtesans. It's all there in the paintings.'



The National's show adds a further 40 works to its tally, many of which, like 'The Adoration of the Kings' (c1573-1574) from the church of Santa Corona in Vicenza, are seldom loaned. In the magnificent, daylit rooms of the National Gallery, they'll sparkle as opulently as they did when they were created almost half a millennium ago. 'I can see that they're not to everybody's taste,' says Salomon. 'But I think everyone can appreciate how extraordinary they are. There's room for splendour and magnificence in all our lives.'