The obvious truth about much of the devotional art on display in our museums and galleries is that it has been ripped out of context. Religious art commissioned for a church is designed for a religious purpose, to instruct and edify the viewer, and assist prayer. That doesn’t happen even in the most sympathetic secular setting.
So, in gallery 9 of the National Gallery, we can see a very beautiful altarpiece by Paolo Veronese, The Consecration of St Nicholas, from the monastery of San Benedetto al Po, near Mantua, whose abbot commissioned it for a chapel along with another two altarpieces intended to celebrate the monastic life. They were something new; animated, not static and seemed astonishingly lifelike to viewers. During the Napoleonic wars the picture was removed from the monastery – I think the word is “looted”.
