ERRORS IN PICTURES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 67, 20 March 1937, Page 8 (Supplement)

ERRORS IN PICTURES.

OLD MASTERS IGNORE REALISM. HISTORIC VALUE OF \VOKKS. I Many pictures representing historical incidents are full of anachronisms. The older masters were, indeed, absolutely careless as to realism and historic truth. Their object waa simply to paint a beautiful picture and not in the least to portray the facts or even the possibilities of the incident selected. Yet their pictures are often of great historical value as regards their own times, for many of the objects introduced were true as to them. Nothing was too commonplace, and few things even too grotesque to be introduced, provided they could only be made ornamental or serve to excite interest. The large painting of the Marriage at Cana in Galilee, by Paul Veronese, which hangs in the Louvre, is a good instance in point. It is full of detail and may be studied for hours with the result of discovering more and more oddities. The room is a lofty hall of fine Architecture, and the guests are splendidly dressed. The table ia covered with snow white linen and crowded with dishes and glass. The master of the feast holds a large very shallow wineglass to the light with the air of a connoisseur, and is inspecting the newly changed water which he has evidently just tasted with surprise. The waterpots of stone are beautifully carved flagons. At the base of one an enormous cat crouches at play. To balance the cat an exceedingly small dog is walking on the right-hand table, evidently a dwarf and exhibited as a curiosity. Of all things that might seem least appropriate is a human dwarf. At the left corner of the picture stands erect a middle-aged man with a coarse, hirsute face, whose height is such that the top of his head is scarcely level with the table, and he reaches upwards to put his hand on it. The portrait is true to life, representing what is known as a short-limbed dwarf, his legs and arms being in no sort of proportion to his trunk. In all probability it is a portrait from some individual who was kept at the establishment of some nobleman with whom Veronese was on visiting terms. As regards Italian dress and furniture in the sixteenth century the picture is invaluable. Of its artistic beauty there is no need to speak. In regard to its religions character or use as an assistance to the realistic imagination of the incident, it has no value whatever.