Venice: A feast of great art

Venice is a 10,000-carat jewel set by the greatest ever goldsmith pinned to the breast of the most beautiful woman to have lived. Built out of a need for security in the turbulent world of late antiquity, it was protected by the lagoon, which also gave it political stability, and with political stability came riches, conservatism and trade. The great longevity of the serene republic and the restricted space of the island made it a mishmash of styles and architectures. The exuberant frontage plastered along the canals gives the sensation of being immersed in a grandiose opera set. It is a fabulous and wonderful and totally pleasurable explosion of culture. The physical Venice, which sucked in Ruskin and Thomas Mann and continues to charm us today, reflects the peculiarities of its geography and history — but so does its awesome painterly history. Restricted, like the city itself, by space, I have chosen representative art in a backwards journey.

If you arrive in Venice by train, surging over the lagoon on the long, low railway bridge and arriving into Santa Lucia station, you will be near the Palazzo Labia, one of the greatest sights of the Venetian rococo (an age in which Venice has been stuck as if in aspic, with its succession of costume balls and masquerades). Perhaps the most famous Venetian spectacular of the last century was held here, the Latin American millionaire Carlos de Beistegui’s Oriental Ball. Its theme was Antony and Cleopatra (with Diana Cooper in the starring role) — particularly fitting because the Palazzo Labia was decorated by the astonishing Giambattista Tiepolo, the greatest decorative painter of his day, and the frescoes representing Antony and Cleopatra are perhaps his finest work, the culmination of extensive meditations on the theme of the ancient lovers. Brilliantly coloured figures burst out of the architecture of the great hall.