Large-Scale Painting

No open-access works for Large-Scale Painting are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.

About Large-Scale Painting

Size changes how a painting acts on the body. A very large canvas can overwhelm, surround or pull the viewer in, and has long signalled the ambition of churches, rulers and artists.

Venice set early records: Paolo Veronese's The Wedding at Cana (1563) seats well over a hundred figures across nearly ten metres, and Tintoretto's Paradise (about 1588–92) for the Doge's Palace is wider still. Gustave Courbet caused outrage with A Burial at Ornans (1849–50) by giving ordinary villagers heroic scale. In the 20th century size became a way to alter perception. Barnett Newman wanted Vir Heroicus Sublimis (1950–51) seen from close up, so its red field fills the eye, and James Rosenquist's F-111 (1964–65) wrapped a room in Pop images of a warplane and consumer goods. Muralists such as Blu now paint whole building façades. Look from far away, then close enough to lose the edges.

The makers