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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 4
Lesson 9: Venice- Greek painters in renaissance Venice
- The Renaissance Synagogues of Venice
- Giorgione, The Tempest
- Giorgione, The Tempest
- Giorgione, Three Philosophers
- Giorgione, the Adoration of the Shepherds
- Bellini and Titian, the Feast of the Gods
- Titian, Pastoral Concert
- Titian, Noli me Tangere
- Titian, Assumption of the Virgin
- Titian, Madonna of the Pesaro Family
- Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne
- Titian, Isabella d’Este (Isabella in Black)
- Titian, two portraits of Pietro Aretino
- Titian, Venus of Urbino
- Titian, Venus of Urbino
- Titian's Venus of Urbino
- Titian, Christ Crowned with Thorns
- Titian, Pieta
- Correggio, Jupiter and Io
- Correggio, Assumption of the Virgin
- Veronese, The Family of Darius Before Alexander
- Veronese, the Dream of Saint Helena
- Paolo Veronese. Feast in the House of Levi
- Transcript of the trial of Veronese
- Tintoretto, the Miracle of the Slave
- Tintoretto, The Finding of the Body of Saint Mark
- Tintoretto, the Origin of the Milky Way
- Tintoretto, Last Supper
- Palladio, La Rotonda
- Palladio, Teatro Olimpico
- The Renaissance in Venice in the 1500s
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Veronese, The Family of Darius Before Alexander
Paolo Veronese, The Family of Darius before Alexander, 1565-67, oil on canvas, 236.2 x 474.9 cm (The National Gallery, London). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- I know it’s nice to be king and be home schooled by Aristotle but how can a man accomplish so much in only 33 years?(4 votes)
- It's not like there was a whole lot else for someone who was well off to do. There wasn't any TV to watch, and even most of the classic books hadn't been written yet, or were written by your teacher.(16 votes)
- why is that monkey there?(6 votes)
- Exotic creatures or objects (here a monkey) were used to depict the breadth of the empire and in this painting, also its opulence. That is the straight-forward context, but allow me another connection.
As a man of the present, monkeys invoke thoughts of the circus. But what is a circus really about? The circus has historically been focused on exhibition of grandeur, as distant as the times of Ancient Rome. The practice of incorporating "circus animals", such as elephants, lions, and monkeys, is then a logical extension of the desire to showcase the global reach of a society; this modern relateable practice can hopefully allow you to understand that particular intricacy of the painting's composition. Read more on circuses historically, if it interests you, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus(4 votes)
- Did Alexander give mercy to Darius's family?(4 votes)
- I found this on Wikipedia. It's by Plutarch who wrote about the family of Darius: "[Alexander] gave them leave to bury whom they pleased of the Persians, and to make use for this purpose what garments and furniture they thought fit out of the booty. He diminished nothing of their equipage, or of the attentions and respect formerly paid them, and allowed larger pensions for their maintenance than they had before. But the noblest and most royal part of their usage was, that he treated these illustrious prisoners according to their virtue and character."(8 votes)
- Where is this painting? How big is it?(2 votes)
- This painting is in the National Gallery in London and is 2.362 x 4.749 meters (about 7.75 x 15.6 feet).
Source: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/paolo-veronese-the-family-of-darius-before-alexander/*/key-facts(8 votes)
- The Khan Academy began life teaching math, so to pay tribute to the Academy's beginnings, I'll ask a math question about this wonderful painting: How many animals did Veronese include in this big canvas? What role do the animals play in creating this scene?(1 vote)
- what is the monkey holding?(1 vote)
- It does look like a rosary. I believe it is an iron chain.(1 vote)
- Why were the classical figures from ancient Greece and Persia painted dressing contemporary Venetian clothes by Veronese here?(1 vote)
- This is a phenomenon similar to why St Mary was also painted wearing styles common to the time and place of the painter. We show what we know.(1 vote)
- The two art historians, in general, are doing a good job. But they've told us over and over about the rich color of the Renaissance, which they do again here. How about telling us which figure is supposed to be Alexander. Is he the one in the red? They never tell us. Is the advisor the one in the green? They don't tell us.(0 votes)
- They do, it's even written in the video at. 1:30(5 votes)
Video transcript
(jazzy music) Male: It's opulent. It's large. It's full of saturated color. And it's kind of confusing. Female: It's quite confusing. We're looking at a painting by the great Venecian painter, Veronese, called The Family of
Darius before Alexander. Male: Darius was the
ruler of the Persians. The Persians had been at war with Greece. Alexander the Great, that
famous Greek general, had finally conquered Darius. Here is his family asking for mercy. Female: When Alexander
conquered the Persians, Darius, the leader of
the Persians' escape, but his family was taken hostage. In this painting by Veronese,
we see Darius' mother pleading for mercy for his family. With her are Darius'
wife, behind her in gold, and Darius' children. Male: Now this was serious business because when one army conquered another generally the conquered would be killed, could be raped, could be enslaved. Female: It's a very
serious moment, indeed. Darius' mother is making
a very serious mistake, because instead of pleading for mercy with Alexander, she actually
addresses Hephaestion, Alexander's adviser. Male: But the courtly figure of Alexander steps forward and really
smooths over the mistake. Female: That's right Alexander says to her, "It's
okay. This is also Alexander." Male: Now how does that make sense? Female: Well, he's saying it's okay. This is my close friend. This is my close adviser
since my childhood. A very generous gesture,
both toward his friend, Hephaestion, and also
toward Darius' mother, saying it's okay this mistake. It's understandable. Male: So Alexander is being portrayed here not only as a brilliant military ruler, but also as a diplomat, also as somebody who is very much a courtly
figure in the highest sense. Those would have been
values that would have been very important to the
Venetians at this time, to the Pisani family who had commissioned this painting from Veronese. It's intersting that the initial confusion that we feel when we
look at this painting, who are all these figures, is exactly a part of the narrative itself. It is the confusion that
is being represented. Female: That's right. Male: This is a grand
painting on a grand scale. It is filled to capacity
with other figures who are really unnecessary but give the painting
a kind of complication and that function kind of anecdotally. For example, on the right
side, you don't need to have a dog in the painting. The dog looks like it is
aggressive and it might attack those figures who are kneeling, but it's being restrained by the guard. This, of course, stands
as a kind of illusion to the restraint that
Alexander himself is showing. Let's walk up to this painting
and look at it closely, because it's really beautiful. Veronese has imbued the
figures in the foreground with a kind of richness,
a kind of density, that shows of brilliant
coloration and brushwork. Female: We see the primary colors of red and yellow and blue and
then secondary colors of greens and oranges. Color is so much a part of Veronese's work and of the Venetians in general. Male: It's interesting,
because when you look at the painting closely,
certainly you see color, certainly you see a kind
of bravura brushwork. You can see that
especially in the children of Darius; in, for instance,
the white that highlights the blue and white
clothing that they wear. But line is also clearly important. Female: We see contours and drawing especially in the architecture
in the background. Male: It's almost as
if those are sketches. You've got this beautiful
architectural frieze in the background that
contains even more figures up towards the top of the canvas, but if you look at the extreme left side, towards the background you can see these beautifully foreshortened horses, and they are almost mere sketches. Female: If you look closely, everything in the painting is in motion. We feel this drama
happening at this moment. We feel everybody reacting. We have this sweeping diagonal from the lower left to the upper right that is the basis for the composition, so there's a real sense
of confusion and activity and movement, and a kind
of theatricality here, and we feel like we're
observers, just like the people we see on the
balustrade in the background. (jazzy music)