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Masterpieces in Colour Edited by--M. Henry Roujon
REYNOLDS HOLBEIN VELASQUEZ BURNE-JONES GREUZE LE BRUN TURNER CHARDIN BOTTICELLI MILLET ROMNEY RAEBURN REMBRANDT SARGENT BELLINI CONSTABLE FRA ANGELICO MEMLING ROSSETTI FRAGONARD RAPHAEL DÜRER LEIGHTON LAWRENCE HOLMAN HUNT HOGARTH TITIAN WATTEAU MILLAIS MURILLO LUINI WATTS FRANZ HALS INGRES CARLO DOLCI COROT GAINSBOROUGH DELACROIX TINTORETTO FRA LIPPO LIPPI VAN DYCK PUVIS DE CHAVANNES DA VINCI MEISSONIER WHISTLER GEROME RUBENS VERONESE BOUCHER VAN EYCK MANTEGNA
[Illustration: PLATE I.--JUPITER DESTROYING THE VICES
This large composition shows a method rarely employed by Veronese. The great imaginative artist here tried his hand at the more vigorous school of painting, and with complete success. It is especially admired for certain remarkable effects of foreshortening. This picture, painted for the Ducal Palace, served as a ceiling decoration in Louis XIVth's chamber at Versailles, until it was finally transferred to the Louvre.]
Translated from the French by Frederic Taber Cooper
With Eight Facsimile Reproductions in Colour
Frederick A. Stokes Company New York--Publishers
Copyright, 1912, by Frederick A. Stokes Company
The·Plimpton·Press [W·D·O] Norwood·Mass·U·S·A
Plate I. Jupiter Destroying the Vices Frontispiece In the Musée du Louvre
II. The Disciples at Emmaus 14 In the Musée du Louvre
III. The Holy Family 24 In the Musée du Louvre
IV. The Wedding at Cana 34 In the Musée du Louvre
V. The Family of Darius 40 In the National Gallery, London
VII. The Marriage of St. Catherine 60 In the Accademia delle Belle Arti, Venice
VIII. The Vision of St. Helena 70 In the National Gallery, London
It has been said of Veronese that he was the most absurd and the most adorable of the great painters. Paradoxical as it sounds, this judgment is perfectly true. Absurd, Veronese undoubtedly was, in his disdain of logic and common sense, in his complete indifference to historic truth and school traditions, and in his anachronistic habit of garbing antiquity in modern raiment. "I paint my pictures," he said, "without taking these matters into consideration, and I allow myself the same license which is granted to poets and to fools." And it is precisely his riotous fantasy, his naïve self-confidence, his own peculiar way of understanding mythology and religion that have made him the adorable artist whose glory has been consecrated by the centuries.