Saint Anthony Preaching to the Fish

Saint Anthony Preaching to the Fish (Italian: Predica di sant'Antonio ai pesci; literally, Sermon of Saint Anthony to the Fishes) is a 1580–1585 oil-on-canvas painting of Anthony of Padua by Paolo Veronese, now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Its original location is unknown, though its medium dimensions of 104 centimetres (41 in) by 150 centimetres (59 in) mean it may have been painted for the side wall of a chapel or as part of a cycle of paintings for a small school (scuola) somewhere in Veneto. It entered the collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese as a 1607 gift from Francesco Barbaro (patriarch of Aquileia).

History and provenance

An existing letter from Barbaro to Borghese documents that Barbaro sent two paintings by Veronese to Borghese separately, though the letter does not describe the paintings in much detail. The letter does note the two paintings depict "sermons"; the Galleria Borghese has owned two paintings depicting sermons—the Saint John the Baptist Preaching and Saint Anthony Preaching to the Fish, both by Veronese—for quite some time. An account from a framer dated 25 July 1612 confirms the painting was located in Rome no later than 1612. Prior to their move to the Villa Borghese Pinciana (today's Galleria Borghese), the two "sermon" paintings had been placed at Palazzo Torlonia by 1613, when they were described in verse by the court poet Scipione Francucci.

In 1893 art historian Adolfo Venturi attributed the painting to Veronese. In 1897 art critic Giovanni Morelli contested this attribution, instead attributing the painting to Giovanni Battista Zelotti. Percy Herbert Osmond and Theodor Hetzer also attributed the painting to Zelotti, in 1927 and 1946, respectively. Their doubts were based on the painting's poor pictorial quality, though at the time it had not been properly restored. Subsequently, many art historians reattributed the painting to Veronese, including Roberto Longhi and Giuseppe Fiocco in 1928, Rodolfo Pallucchini in 1944, and Terisio Pignatti and Filipo Pedrocco in 1995.

The painting was treated or "restored" at least twice during the 20th century. In 1919 it was cleaned, with some small gaps plastered over and repainted, and its frame replaced. In 1947 the painting was washed and repainted. It is likely these restorations greatly obscured the painting's fine details—blurring it with a milky layer—as in 1648 Italian painter Claudio Ridolfi had described "fish [that] jump out of the water to hear [Saint Anthony] as if they understood him". These detailed fish were completely illegible prior to a June 2001 restoration.

In the most recent June 2001 restoration, the heavy varnish was removed, restoring light and color to the painting. A new thin protective varnish was applied by nebulization. Old fillings—which in many cases extended beyond the initial gaps—were removed, reducing the amount of retouching work needed. The existing frame was removed, as it did not allow for precise tensioning of the canvas. It was replaced by a new frame equipped with a traditional extension adjustment system. During the removal of the frame, the inscription "Paolo Veroneʃe" was discovered: it is not an original signature but functional information for the collector or art dealer.

Description

Compositionally, the painting is oriented horizontally. From left to right it is split into two halves. The left half contains mostly dark blue-green sea and the fish within it, with boats and a mountainous shoreline visible in the distance at extreme center-left. The sea is calm. The painting's right half shows the Rimini coastline upon which Saint Anthony and a crowd of bystanders are gathered, with the city and spires of Rimini visible in the distance at extreme center-right. From top to bottom, the painting may be considered split into three parts. The top third is mostly blue sky with white clouds, though the figure of Saint Anthony also extends into this area. The bottom two-thirds depict the sea, shoreline, and crowd of bystanders.

Veronese places Saint Anthony atop a rock, raising him above the bystanders and focusing attention on his figure. The rock is almost triangular in shape, jutting out into space as if it were the prow of a ship, thereby implying Anthony is a helmsman guiding the church or serving as a beacon of faith. Anthony, dressed in light gray-blue robes and holding a bunch of white lilies, points down to the fish but is turned toward and looks at the human listeners with a somewhat serious or even castigating expression. Veronese painted Anthony taller than he should be relative to the bystanders—a perspectival anachronism—in order to increase the saint's monumental bearing. He is further accentuated by his asymmetric positioning relative to the overall canvas. Anthony's orientation toward the listeners appears to be inspired by that of Jesus in Tintoretto's circa 1579–1581 Multiplication of Bread and Fishes at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice.

Not including Anthony, there are at least sixteen distinguishable bystanders in the painting, with some dark shapes behind these sixteen figures suggesting an even larger crowd. Of these listeners, only one looks directly at Saint Anthony: this figure, dressed in yellow robes and with his right hand over his heart as a sign of devotion, is thought to be a self-portrait of Veronese. The other figures look either at each other or the fish in amazement. Some of them sit or lean on rock formations. Though the scene is meant to take place in Rimini, some of the figures appear to be non-Italian foreigners, including Turks, Jews, and a Moor. The two Turks in the bottom right corner of the foreground are dressed in striking reddish robes. The rightmost Turk has his back turned to the viewer and his face is not visible. He wears black boots and a yellow turban with a red cockade, addressing his compatriot while gesturing at the fish with his left arm. This figure may have been inspired by a similar one depicted in the bottom center of the 1498 Albrecht Dürer engraving The Whore of Babylon. The leftmost Turk wears a white turban and looks toward the fish incredulously or in amazement.

原文较长，这里只摘了前面一部分，摘自英文维基百科「Saint Anthony Preaching to the Fish」（暂时没有中文条目，下面是英文原文），按 CC BY-SA 4.0 使用，去掉了参考文献、外部链接等尾部小节和表格，其余文字未作改动。