Paolo Veronese

Veronese filled enormous canvases with feasts, and got into trouble for exactly that. Hauled before the Inquisition in 1573 over a Last Supper crowded with dwarfs, dogs, drunkards and German soldiers, he declined to repaint it and simply changed the title to Feast in the House of Levi. The picture survives, unaltered.

Colour is what he is for. Silvery blues, pale greens, shot silks, all held in high key light that keeps even the shadows luminous. He worked large, often architecturally, painting ceilings and walls in Venetian palaces and churches where the illusion had to work from below.

The Villa Barbaro frescoes at Maser, made with Palladio’s architecture, show the playful side: painted doors with figures stepping through them, false balconies, a dog that appears to be watching the room. Rubens and the Venetian tradition after him took the colour and left the restraint.