Saturday, January 05, 2013

Manifestation

Veronese, The Marriage at Cana (1563)

Tomorrow is Epiphany, of course, which is the feast of revelation, and is associated with three things: the visit of the Magi to the infant Christ, the wedding feast at Cana, and the baptism in the Jordan, each of which is in a different way a story about the revelation of Christ to the world. This is a very famous painting by the sixteenth-century Venetian painter, Paolo Veronese; Dante Gabriel Rossetti regarded it as the greatest painting in the world. The thing is utterly huge and intricately detailed; you should click through to see the Wikimedia Commons image, which allows you to zoom in on particular parts.

Epiphany is often considered the fourth most important feast in the Christian calendar, after Easter, Christmas, and Pentecost. I'll be putting up several notable Epiphany-themed poems throughout the day tomorrow.