
The Wedding at Cana (Veronese)
1563 · Louvre, Paris
A hundred and thirty guests feast while Christ works his first miracle almost unnoticed at the table. Napoleon's troops took it to Paris in 1797.
★ 8.2

A hundred and thirty guests feast while Christ works his first miracle almost unnoticed at the table. Napoleon's troops took it to Paris in 1797.

The tower is already leaning as it goes up, and Bruegel drew the cranes and ramps in enough detail that you could nearly build it.

A head made of cracked bark and bare twigs, standing for the dying year and, flatteringly, for a Habsburg dynasty that stays evergreen.

A cucumber nose, a peach cheek, a garlic-clove ear, and Arcimboldo's own name woven into the collar of plaited straw.