The Visitation

This Visitation by Paolo Veronese, painted in 1577 and held at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, depicts the meeting between the pregnant Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth. By this date Veronese was the acknowledged master of Venetian painting following Titian's death in 1576, and his late works show an increasing depth of religious feeling alongside his characteristic splendor. The Barber Institute painting demonstrates how Veronese could invest even a relatively intimate religious encounter with grandeur and dignity, framing the two women within an architectural setting of classical nobility.

The architectural backdrop creates a stage-like setting typical of Veronese's narrative paintings, with the two figures placed within a carefully constructed perspectival space. The late palette shows the warmer, more muted tones that characterize Veronese's final decade, while the brushwork remains confident and fluent.