VERONESE, Paolo
(b. 1528, Verona, d. 1588, Venezia)

Healing of the Lame Man at the Pool of Bethesda

1560
Oil on canvas, 490 x 190 cm
San Sebastiano, Venice

When opened, the painted wings of the organ of San Sebastiano show an interior court surrounded by Corinthian colonnades. The latter allude to the mention of five porches around the pool in Jerusalem in the story as told in St. John 5:1-8. In it "lay a great multitude of sick folk, of blind, halt and withered", waiting for the angel who "went down at a certain season into the pool and troubled the water". The first person to enter the water after the "stirring" was cured. The depiction is among the miracles of Christ: with the words, "Rise, take up thy bed and walk", he heals a lame man who is always too late to reach the water. Veronese's accommodation of the throng of moving figures to the architecture from the depth to the foreground is masterly.




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