TIEPOLO, Giovanni Battista
(b. 1696, Venezia, d. 1770, Madrid)

Apparition of the Virgin to St Simon Stock

1749
Oil on canvas, 533 x 432 cm
Scuola Grande dei Carmini, Venice

Tiepolo decorated the ceiling of the Sala Capitolare in the Scuola Grande dei Carmini with the canvases Apparition of the Virgin to St Simon Stock, together with virtues and allegories.

Swathed in a full, dazzling light and supported by a sensual flight of angels, the Virgin Mary appears to St Simon, promising him eternal salvation in exchange for accepting the scapular, the gentle yoke of Christ. The figures closeness and corporeal reality, the structural solidity of the plinth on which Stock kneels, and the dark presence of purgatory below contribute to the forceful and immediate impact made on the viewer.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.