Hi friends!
Time for
RomanticFridayWriter's postings for the theme - June Wedding. Surprise, surprise. I decided to go with the non-fiction option this month, but I've also been working on reducing the word count on the wedding excerpt from my novel, Fijian Princess.
Who's travelled to Venice? If you have, you'll probably agree with me it's one of the most gob-smackingly-beautiful cities in the world, certainly one of the most unique, floating as it is on water. The High Renaissance architecture is so amazing it hurts your eyes. And what's inside these gorgeous buildings blows your mind. How about the art? The museums? Just unbelievable.
Now the June Wedding challenge for RFW got me thinking about one of the most famous wedding feasts of all time -
The Wedding at Cana.
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The Wedding at Cana
Photo by me using the panorama option on my Samsung Note 11. |
The large Benedictine monastery of San Georgio Maggiore in Venice was once the home to the gigantic
teler (canvas), The Wedding at Cana, with an area of 70 sqm which occupied the entire top half of the back wall to illustrate the biblical scene eminently suited to the dining hall of a the Black Monks.
(It can now be viewed at the Louvre, Paris.)
The painter Paolo Caliari (known as Veronese) was one of the leading lights of Venetian mannerism in 1562. He was contracted by the monks on June 6, 1562. Veronese was asked to people the painting with as many as he could fit into it. He managed 130. The artist was paid 324 ducats (approx. US$289,000 today), but he would also receive a wine cask and all meals during the time of the contract. He was only a few days past the deadline.
Here is how the painting has been described:
"The intoxicating genius of Venice is palpable in this superb masterpiece, with its urbane light-heartedness, its colourful array of costumes, its delight in opulence, its theatrical flavour and decorative flair, its embrace of light, and its sheer vivacity. There is no other painting as purely Venetian as The Wedding at Cana." Theophile Gautier, 1882.
The theme of the painting is taken from the New Testament, the Gospel of St John. This is the story..:
"And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: and both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him,
They have no wine.
Jesus saith unto her,
Woman...Mine hour is not yet come.
His mother saith unto the servants,
Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them,
Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.
When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made into wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom. And saith unto him,
Every man at the beginning doeth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that whichis worse; but thou has kept the good wine until now.
This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee."
Well, I would have liked to have tasted
that wine!
All good wishes to any brides and grooms out there who will be toasting a happy future together!
Go
here to read more stories/poems/non-fiction based on the June Wedding theme...
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So, here's good ole boy Johnny Cash singing to the good ole boys in San Quentin prison (1969). Love it!
