Canaletto

GIOVANNI ANTONIO CANAL ( CANALETTO) (1697 – 1768)

Following in his father’s footsteps in the art of Theatrical Scene Painting he studied the works of Van Wittel in Rome, which led him to paint such subjects of powerful perspective content as Architectural Ruins and ancient buildings. These skills led to his phenomenal success when he began his veduta paintings of Venice. So great became his renown as a painter that the British Consulate in Venice commissioned ten works. He went to England in 1746 and spent the next ten years of his life there, alternating veduta paintings of London and the English countryside with Venetian ones based on paintings that he had taken with him. Upon his return to Venice he was elected to the Fine Arts Academy where he became the leading authority on Perspective.

SAN MARCO AND PALAZZO DUCALE

This version, housed at the Uffizi Gallery, affords one of the many excellent perspectives to evoke the awe inspired in the artist’s contemporaries upon their approach from the sea by the beauty of the Doge’s Palace and the magnificent setting of St Mark’s Square.