Wedding at Cana

The wedding at Cana is an account drawn from the Christian New Testament. It is present only in the Évangile according to Jean and is not brought back by the synoptic Gospels. It is one of the reasons for which this account is not always regarded as reporting an historical event.

Direction symbolic systems

The miracle of Cana is presented like the first of Jesus, it is to say all its importance symbolic system and its spiritual range. The authors of this Gospel which the Christian tradition allots to Jean introduce Jesus like very powerful.

Jesus and his disciples are introduced as not respecting scrupulously the instructions sacrémentiels of the time since they divert the use of the earthenware jars, normally used for ablutions.

The text of the Gospel according to Jean

“the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galileo. The mother of Jesus was there. Jesus also was invited to the wedding like his disciples. The wine has suddenly missed, the mother of Jesus says to him “They do not have wine”. Jesus “That do you want me say to him, woman? My hour did not come yet”. His/her mother said to the servants: “Made what he will say to you”.

“But there were six stone earthenware jars, for the purifications of the Jews, containing each one two or three measurements. Jesus called to the servants: “Fill with water these earthenware jars”. They filled them to the edge. He says to them: “Draw now and carry to the Master of hotel”. They carried to him from there. When the Master of hotel had tasted the become water of the wine - he was unaware of the source of it, but the waiters knew it, them which had drawn water - he calls the groom and says to him: “Everyone serves initially the good wine and, when people are drunk, then the least good; you, you kept the good wine until now”.

“Such was the beginning of the signs of Jesus; it was in Cana of Galileo. He expressed his glory, and its disciples believed in him”. ( Gospel according to Jean , 2,1-11).

The Wedding at Cana in painting

The topic of the “ Wedding at Cana ” inspired the painters always much. One of the most famous tables on this topic was painted with Venice for the refectory - built by Andrea Palladio - monastery Bénédictin of San Giorgio Maggiore (opposite the Palais of the Doges) in 1562 - 1563, by one of largest - with Titien and Tintoret - Venetian painters, Paolo Caliari known as Véronèse , whereas this one was 35 years old. Véronèse represented there a biblical scene within the framework of a Venetian festival, mixing the characters with the Bible and the contemporary figures. One can, appears it, to recognize there some of the largest sovereigns of Europe: the King de France François Ier, the emperor Charles-Quint, the Othoman Sultan Soliman II Splendid the, the queen Marie of England, lords and the ladies most famous by their value and their beauty, Éléonore of Austria, Alphonse d' Avalos, cardinal Bernardo Navagero and Charles of Lorraine, like, Titien, Bassano and Véronèse itself among the musicians, Pierre Arétin as a master of ceremony.

The table was ordered to him within the framework of rebuilding works of the Couvent. In the refectory, it overhung the pulpit from where the Abbé made the reading during the meal, which obliged the glances to converge towards him. It is painted on fabrics because the frescos were preserved very badly at Venice because of the high degree of salinity. The representation of a banquet seems completely logical within the framework of a refectory. Véronèse was probably inspired, for the setting in scene of its table of a text of Arétin, which wrote in 1535 the Four books of the humanity of Christ - popularizing work of the holy history - in which this one indicates details (that one finds in the table) which does not appear in the text of holy Jean.

The scene is held on a kind of terrace overhung by a balustrade and an esplanade against which characters appuyent themselves. One sees on the right-hand side and the left of the table of the monuments, and one can see that those concern various architectural styles: doric columns, then Corinthian, finally composite. A tower in square plan was placed in the center of the table, slightly on the line, in order to break the symmetry which, without it, too would be crushing. On this terrace a large table is drawn up, around which the guests in great number are installed (one counts 132 of them), surrounded by the servants. Curiously, they are not the grooms who occupy the center of the scene, but the Christ, which has, on her line the Virgin Mary and Pierre, and, on its left, André, Philippe and Barthélemy, out of dress of pilgrims. The grooms are exiled in end of table on the left. Crowned mixing Véronèse and the layman, the religious subject disappears somewhat in the dazzling from this princely festival. The religious symbols announcing the Passion of Christ côtoient a luxurious money crockery and a goldsmithery of. It took a care particular to all the details and this meticulousness contributes to make of this table a chief of work, and one of major works of the Renaissance.

This table is currently exposed to the Musée from Louvre in Paris, facing the Joconde of Leonard de Vinci.

Among the other painters who represented this episode of the Wedding at Cana in a table, one can quote: Giotto (beginning of), Léonard de Vinci (lost or destroyed work), Gerard David (v. 1501 - 1502), Giuseppe Maria Crespi (Lo Spagnuolo) (v. 1587 - 1588),

Internal bond

See the article: the Wedding at Cana (Véronèse).

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