Adoration of the Magi

1573 was an awkward year for Veronese. That summer the Inquisition summoned him to explain the dogs, drunkards, and dwarfs he had crowded into a painting of the Last Supper. He answered that painters take the same liberties as poets, and simply renamed the picture. This Adoration, dated 1573 on its lowest stone step, shows the same instinct for spectacle put to safer use. The three kings arrive at a stable propped against the ruins of a grand classical building, a triumphal arch rising behind, the whole scene staged like theatre under a burst of light. It was painted for a Venetian confraternity of Saint Joseph, to hang beside a side altar rather than above one, which is why the drama reads across the picture rather than up it.