Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

corner on the right seems to be about to walk up the stairs to participate in the
banquet. Likewise, the man in Veronese’s paining on the left, who is bending over
the stairs, seems to be greeting or about to shake hands with one of the museum
visitors below him. The museum visitors in the background, then, lose their status
as viewers and become an extension of the painting, a tableau vivant that
underscores the realism and illusionism of the painting as well as the ability of
photography to fuse the present time and museum’s space with the cinquecento
palace of a Venetian aristocrat.
Paradoxically, then, while the people in the background of the photo do
not seem to be viewers, but rather part of the painting, those whom we see as
viewers, in the foreground of the photo, do not look at the painting the viewer of
the photograph sees, but rather at Tintorettos’ Martyrdom of St. Mark (ca. 1662-
66) which, however, is not in the photo (cf. Belting 21). Thus, whereas the photo
depicts the former group ekphrastically in form of a tableau vivant, the viewers in
the foreground are examples of verbal ekphrasis represented visually. Their
posture, movements and gestures display different attitudes to art and to seeing.
The group of three on the left, for example, is shown here as more casual, perhaps
even impatient viewers. Two of them are apparently moving, while the other is
standing in a tired or bored pose. The man with the red shirt right behind them, on
the other hand, stands still and looks contemplatively and steadily at the picture
opposite him. The people on the right are engaged in a different kind of reception,
one that is verbal by implication. Three of them do not look at the Tintoretto
opposite them, but are apparently reading something on the sheet in front of the
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