Saint Veronica

Bernardo Strozzi, an Italian Baroque artist of the early - 17th century, created this painting of Saint Veronica in the years between 1620 and 1625. These years were before Rome briefly pulled him in, and long before the accusations that eventually chased him out of Genoa for good. He was still a Capuchin monk during the time but he quietly worked as a painter under his robes. He later got into serious trouble at home in Genoa because of this dual arrangement and he decided to fled to Venice, where he stayed until he died. People nicknamed him Il Prete Genovese, the Genoese priest, and both identity - half sacred, half worldly, carries its effect on the painting. Veronica sits alone on a stone balustrade while unfolding the sacred ‘veil of Veronica’ which she had used to wipe Christ’s face on his way to Calvary. The old story goes that his image appeared on the fabric afterward, no hand involved. Strozzi catches the instant she realizes this. Her body leans and turns gently, weight shifting to one side, one hand braced uncertainly against the stone, the other raising the cloth so it slices a bright white diagonal across her green mantle and pink dress underneath. Her wet eyes are looking somewhere past the edge of the canvas entirely, and that is where most of the picture’s feeling actually lives, not in her hands or her posture. There is also something worth noticing in how differently Strozzi paints the same woman. Her clothes are loaded with paint, thick and almost sculptural, brushstrokes with real physical weight behind them. Then the face turns soft, almost dissolved, glowing with the flushed tones he was known for. That tension between heavy fabric and delicate skin shows up frequently in his work from these years. Eventually the painting crossed into Spain. Elisabeth Farnese, Philip V’s wife, bought it in Seville, and from there it stayed inside the royal collection until it landed at the Prado, where it still hangs today.