On first viewing, Canaletto's British pictures confirm his reputation as a master of meticulous realism. Executed between 1746 and 1755, these paintings radiate the optimism of the empirical ...Scientific Revolution. Like Francis Bacon, the Venetian artist apparently believed that a "true knowledge of things" could be arrived at by shutting down the misleading mind and "keeping the eye steadily fixed on the facts of nature, so receiving their images simply as they are". Canaletto was equally confident his unshaking hand could render the external world objectively, in images perspicuous and precise. Peering into the plein-air designs on display at Canaletto: Celebrating Britain, you can see why the show is billed as a "documentary" of mid-18th-century Britain.
In his 1948 catalogue of the drawings by Antonio da Canal, known as Canaletto (1697-1768), in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Karl Parker noticed some the artist's construction methods. W. G. ...Constable expanded on these observations in his catalogue raisonne of 1962, writing that "there is almost invariably some indication of preparation in the studio." New infrared reflectance imaging (IRR) of all 142 drawings by Canaletto in the Royal Collection has allowed complete images to be created tor the first time of the graphite preparations observed by Parker and Constable. This article is intended to serve as an introduction to these images, making several new observations on Canaletto's drawing practice.
A hitherto unpublished capriccio of Roman ruins set in a landscape with contemporary figures of rustics and washerwomen has been in the possession of Aberdeen University since a 1865, together with a ...View of the Grand Canal with S. Simeone Piccolo and the Scalzi. Until recently both paintings have often been assumed to be studio or school products. There can be no question, however, that the capriccio is the work of Giovanni Antonio Canal (called Canaletto, 1697-1768). It is a unique and highly original composition executed with a technical dexterity that shows the painter at the height of his powers. The inferior but decorative View of the Grand Canal is equally surely by Canaletto's father and teacher, Bernardo Canal (1673-1744), who practiced as a painter of theatrical scenery but who is also generally credited with a considerable number of vedute in a distinctive style, the majority of them corresponding with his son's compositions.
Canaletto Had Scientist's Eye Holden, Constance
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
10/2001, Letnik:
294, Številka:
5542
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Many 18th century paintings are known for their realism. But the work of the Italian painter Canaletto is so precise that scientists can use it to document sea-level change from 140 years before the ...first official records were kept.
PROJECTED ACTUALITY Williams, Quentin
The British journal of aesthetics,
07/1995, Letnik:
35, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The term "photographically realistic" is often used to describe paintings in which detail is extensive and elaborate. The "photographic" paintings of Jan Vermeer and Canaletto are discussed.
Art: The Venice of Our Dreams Freudenheim, Tom L
The Wall Street journal. Eastern edition,
04/2011
Newspaper Article
Is it annoying to hear the gleeful comments of museum visitors trying to determine the precise location of Harry's Bar and the Danieli Hotel, or grinning with delight at realizing that a certain ...painting (Michele Marieschi's "The Bacino di San Marco," 1739-40) looks like it must have been painted from the Hotel Cipriani's motorboat dock? I think not.
The influence that the Canaletto paintings of British Consul Joseph Smith's collection had on Carlo Goldoni's views of England is discussed. Goldoni's views of England in his plays are also examined.
In the show’s delicious, central juxtaposition, Tiepolo, master of decorative fancy, and Canaletto, who brought crystalline realism to its Venetian apogee, turn out not to be opposites but twins: ...born a year apart — 1696, 1697 — both paint air, light, atmosphere in virtuoso performances, with Canaletto’s parades and façades playing a fiction — Venice’s global status — equivalent to Tiepolo’s bathetic enactments of ancient myth. An impossible recession of arches creates a fantastical, dynamic setting for flitting revellers in “Feast of the Ascension in St Mark’s”, feverish, agitated, whereas “The Fondamenta Nuove with the Lagoon”, looking from modest buildings with crumbling walls across glassy water to the islands of Murano and San Michele, is silent and still. Palazzo Ducale exhibitions are often weighty complements to the novelties of the Venice Biennale; when the 58th edition opens next month, this showcase of painting as performance in a period of self-perceived decline and anxiety will be an intriguing mirror for art today.
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