"Infidelity" from "The Allegories of Love", one of four canvases by Paul VERONESE

I felt as if I had been plunged into a sea of wine of thought, and must drink to drowning. But the first distinct impression which fixed itself on one was that of the entire superiority of Painting to Literature as a test, expression and record of human intelellect, and of the enormously greater quantity of Intellect which might be forced into a picture - and read there - compared with what might be expressed by words. I felt this stongly as I stood before Paul VERONESE. I felt assured that more of Man, more of awful and inconceivable intellect, went into the making of that picture than of a thousand of poems.

John RUSKIN's diary, 8 September 1849