Who was Veronese?

Delightful seminar looking at the current Veronese exhibition at the National Gallery given by Colin Wiggins, a curator of special exhibitions at the gallery.

This was a fascinating mix of the life of Veronese and a look in detail at some of the works in the show. There were some great close ups of details of pictures and much talk of how Veronese loved the ‘stuff’ of painting, the paint, the colour, the canvas etc and however much of illusion he created he never let you forgot it was done with pain. Colin gave lovely descriptions of the work but had to stop himself using the word gorgeous yet again at one point! He also shared my love of Veronese’s dogs!

Colin was also fascinating as he puts on shows by contemporary artists at the gallery and talked a lot about how Veronese influenced contemporary art. I would never have seen this for myself but he had some good examples of very abstract Bridget Riley which followed a Veronese colour pallet and pattern form. He also talked about how modernism is about showing the paint and letting the pain speak as Veronese does in his own context.

A really enjoyable afternoon which is particular left me wanting to go to the Villa Barbero after seeing the wonderful slides of the decoration including amazing dogs!

 

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