Canaletto E-Book

Octave Uzanne

• Herausgeber: Parkstone International
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 196

Beschreibung

Canaletto began his career as a theatrical scene painter, like his father, in the Baroque tradition. Influenced by Giovanni Panini, he is specialised in vedute (views) of Venice, his birth place. Strong contrast between light and shadow is typical of this artist. Furthermore, if some of those views are purely topographical, others include festivals or ceremonial subjects. He also published, thanks to John Smith, his agent, a series of etchings of Cappricci. His main purchasers were British aristocracy because his views reminded them of their Grand Tour. In his paintings geometrical perspective and colours are structuring. Canaletto spent ten years in England. John Smith sold Canaletto’s works to George III, creating the major part of the Royal Canaletto Collection. His greatest works influenced landscape painting in the nineteenth century.

Leseprobe

Text: after Octave Uzanne

Translation: Barbara Cochran

© 2023 Parkstone Press International, New York, USA

© 2023 Confidential Concepts, Worldwide, USA

All rights of adaptation and reproduction reserved, for all countries.

Unless otherwise noted, photographers who are the authors of the works reproduced herein hold copyright on the same. In spite of our research, it was impossible for us to establish copyright in certain cases. In the event of a claim, please contact the publisher.

Octave Uzanne

Contents

Alfred de Musset (1810-1857)

Venice during the Eighteenth Century

Venetian Society

Il Carnavale

The Nobility

Theatrical Arts, Poetry and Painting

Canaletto: His Talent and Training

His Origins and Youth

His Beginnings and Rome

His Return to Venice

His Trips to London

Canaletto: Portraitist of the Serenissima

Canaletto as Painter and Engraver

The Subjects of his Paintings

His Talent as an Engraver

Canaletto’s Legacy

Bellotto, Nephew and Disciple

Colombini, Marieschi, Vinsentini, Guardi and Longhi

Bibliography

1. Venice: the Piazzetta towardsSan Giorgio Maggiore, c. 1724.

Oil on canvas, 173x134.3cm.

The Royal Collection, London.

Alfred de Musset(1810-1857)

Venice

In Venice the Red,

No boat moves.

There is no fisher on the waters,

No lantern to be seen.

Alone, sitting on the strand,

On top of the serene horizon,

The great lion raises

Its bronze paw.

All around, in groups,

Are ships and rowboats.

Like herons

Resting in circles,

They sleep on top of smoky water

And cross,

With their flags, through the mist,

Caught up in light whirlwinds.

The fading moon

Hides its face that passes away

Against a starry,

Half-veiled cloud.

Then, the Saint Croix abbess

Pulls her cloak,

With the large folds,

Down over her surplice.

And then there are ancient palaces,

Solemn porticoes,

And the knight’s

White staircases,

The bridges and streets,

The mournful statues,

And the gulf moves,

Rippling under the wind.

All is quiet,

Save the guards with long halberds

Who watch

Through the arsenal’s crenellations.

Ah! More than one waits

In the moonlight.

Some young dandy

Keeps his ears open.

More than one who adorns herself

For the ball being prepared

Sets down a black mask

In front of the mirror.

On top of her bed, embalmed,

The rapturous Vanina

Is still embracing her lover,

As she drops off to sleep;

And mad Narcissa,

At the back of her gondola

Forgets herself

As she indulges in a feast that lasts till morning.

And who, in Italy,

Does not have a touch of madness?

Who does not save

Their most beautiful days for love?

Let’s leave behind the old clock

At the old doge’s palace,

As they count out the long-lasting boredom

Of his nights.

Instead, my beauty,

Let’s count all those many kisses,

Given…or forgiven

On your restive mouth.

2. The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice, c. 1730.

Oil on canvas, 49.5x72.5cm.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Venice during the Eighteenth Century

3. The Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge,Venice, c. 1730.

Oil on canvas, 49.5x72.5cm.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Venetian Society

The famous city of Venice holds a special kind of influence over enthusiasts who are passionate about eighteenth century art. Indeed, one is at a loss to imagine a more marvellous setting for such a sensual society, always ready to enjoy life, and not worried about tomorrow. What more dignified atmosphere could so assuredly attract poets and painters? What a theme for the writer whose pen is akin to the colourist’s brush and the goldsmith’s chisel? Seduced by the beauty of this tableau and the lively allure of its characters, Théophile Gautier thought long and hard about how to describe and put new life into the city of Doges with a narrative that would trace the local mores of this exuberant and frivolous population. This novel was often pondered in the master’s imagination, but was never written. However, we do find elements of the novel scattered throughout the memoirs of his contemporaries, and we find the same framework in the paintings of Canaletto. With equal interest, one can consult the memoirs of the most informed witnesses, such as Goldoni, Gozzi and Casanova, or, better yet, those by travellers with a trained eye and nimble tongue like Charles de Brosses and François Joachim de Pierre de Bernis.

In a light and at times teasing tone, the correspondence of de Brosses offered the most appealing portrait of Italy to eighteenth century society. Departing with several other gentlemen in the spring of 1739, Charles de Brosses, a spirited yet serious man, was determined to make these ten months serve both for pleasure and instruction. At the time, he was thirty years old and had been an adviser since the age of twenty-one. He was gifted with a mental acuity quite rare in young men, adding to his vast knowledge great perceptiveness and extremely sound judgement, to which his letters bear witness. Before occupying the office of principal magistrate, he found Venice so seductive that he thought about asking for the position of ambassador to the Venetian Republic. However, this observation post, located in southern Europe, being rather difficult to obtain, he revoked his candidature and the Abbot of Bernis filled the post fifteen years later.

A good judge of character, and rather difficult to please for this reason, Bernis, during his short mission, knew how to gain recognition for his style of governing, his personal aptitudes and his character. Thus, his memory lived on long after his departure. Having had several disputes with Venice, Pope Benedict XIV turned to him to mediate. Immediately receiving the approval of the opposing party, the future cardinal was able to settle the disagreement between Rome and Venice, satisfying both sides. No doubt, the success of his intervention contributed to his earning the red hat. The dispatches sent by Bernis during his ambassadorship were quite thorough and filled with very fine remarks written in excellent French, pleasing Louis XV. Judging his representative capable of more important services, the king called him back to France in 1757.

4. The Canale di Santa Chiara lookingNorth towards the Lagoon, c. 1723-1724.

Oil on canvas, 46.7x77.9cm.

The Royal Collection, London.

Before addressing Giovanni Antonio Canaletto’s life and his work, it behoves us to draw a portrait of his birthplace and contemporaries. This is particularly important because at that time, perhaps more than at any other, art, literature and entertainment shared a joint development. Could one truly understand the origin and progression of the master’s talent, his intellectual habits and work methods, without first understanding the society of which he was a member?

Taking an initial glance at Venice’s history, one cannot but be filled with wonder by the powerful energy and the expansive force of its people, enclosed as they are within such narrow limits. The city was thus stimulated by the most ardent patriotism; the prosperity and existence of each being inextricably linked to the interests of the city. Yet nothing is more modest than the origins of this small village of boatmen, nothing more desolate than the sands on which the first bands of fugitives settled. Nevertheless, nothing can match the heights reached by this Republic capable of launching a fleet of five hundred ships into the Bosporus, of navigating three thousand vessels together, and of developing, with the most diverse elements, an original artistic tradition. In this way, Venice assured its standing among the great kingdoms of Europe. With need for neither barriers nor fortifications, being well protected from warships by its shallow lagoons, the city could not be overtaken by outside forces. With a footing in the Middle East and Cyprus, the city continued its crusade along the Mediterranean coastline in Morea and on the island of Candia. Venetian soldiers never lagged in the war against the infidel. At Lepanto, for example, Venice furnished half of the Christian fleet.

Nevertheless, although the military spirit, which quickly died out in the neighbouring principalities, survived over a longer period in Venice, the city’s prestige started to diminish. Geographical discoveries brought a fatal blow to its commerce and the Portuguese soon inherited all the traffic headed for Asia. Politics, carried out by a jealous oligarchy that flattered the Epicurean tendencies of the people, finally got the better of the city’s bellicose behaviour and wish for power.

Of this government steeped in prestige, luxury and a terrible threat of torture, today we are familiar with its infernal police and secret dungeons, all the exterior workings that supplied the Romantic period with the subjects for so many plays and paintings. We know about the Council of Ten, whose masked judges met only at night, the room from which the accused departed only to disappear forever, and “the leads”, the prison under the Doges’ Palace from which Casanova managed to escape in an act of prodigious will. What hasn’t been said about the three state inquisitors and their irrevocable sentences, about the boat with the red lantern light that would stop under the Bridge of Sighs before floating past Giudecca towards the Orfano canal, where deep waters enshrouded their victims and their secrets, where fishermen were prohibited from casting their nets? A row of wooden stilts indicated the waters where the boat would stop. Still today, one of the posts supports, with a lamp lit by gondoliers, the tiny chapel that received the last prayer of these supplicants.

In the eighteenth century, a new political atmosphere was definitively set in place. Venice’s prestigious history was over and the careers of great artists and great patriots were forever ended. In vain did Francesco Morosini,[1] for his prowess in Morea and on Candia Island, earn the nickname “Peloponnesiac”. In vain did the old Marshal Schulembourg, who served twenty-eight years as General of the Republican Armies, merit the honour of an equestrian statue in Corfu Square. The lion of Saint Mark drew in its claws and the Queen of the Adriatic dozed off into a voluptuous nonchalance that only the bells of a masquerade could trouble. Moreover, the leaders kept up a system of perpetual amusement for the population. They thought this the most prudent method of guarding against intrigues, as this was the surest way to divert people’s minds from unsettling preoccupations. For Venetians, who were naturally drawn to lavishness and superficial appearances, and who were located somewhere between unlimited freedom, as far as pleasure was concerned, and an absolute prohibition against discussing the actions of those in power, constant celebrations and the most rowdy of pleasures became a necessity. In this Cytherean court, which had never produced a Watteau, there was an overabundance of gaiety and the decadence was, at least, as sweet and bright as an evening on the banks of the lagoons.

5. Entrance to the Grand Canalfrom the Molo, Venice, 1742-1744.

Oil on canvas, 114.5x153.5cm.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

6. The Grand Canal, from the Foscari Palace, c. 1735.

Oil on canvas, 57.2x92.7cm.

Private Collection.

7. The Grand Canal: looking South-eastfrom the Campo Santa Sophia tothe Rialto Bridge, c. 1756.

Oil on canvas, 119x185cm.

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin.

8. The Grand Canal from theFondamenta della Croce, c. 1734.

Pencil and dark ink, 26.9x37.6cm.

The Royal Collection, London.

Il Carnavale

Over a period of six months, the carnival attracted throngs of close to thirty thousand foreigners to Venice. Its theme: down with serious matters, long live freedom and folly! Yokels and patricians alike seemed to be overtaken by the same vertiginous activities, consumed by parades of people dressed up as astrologers, doctors, lawyers and gondoliers. Among the clowns, who wore huge cone-shaped hats, the most nimble of the bunch advanced on their hands, others danced about while playing barrel organs and the whole group whirled about to the sound of lively music. The people, free to loudly express their condemnation or approval, followed each group with shouts, catcalls, applause and jeers. At Saint Mark’s Square, the major neighbourhood for masks, one wandered about without advancing through the dense crowd. The seven theatres reserved for the carnival proving to be inadequate for the festivities, harlequins performed their tomfoolery in the open air and comedic improvisers amused spectators with their buffoonery. At the smaller intersections, feats of strength and sleight of hand were organized. At the end of the carnival, there remained nothing but a few scattered passers-by appropriately armed with axes and cutlasses to defend themselves against the bulls that were led through the streets, fighting in certain places.

On Fat Thursday, the butchers’ festival, a bull was beheaded with a single blow of the sword, a barbaric amusement established to commemorate an old victory over the Patriarch of Aquileia. The latter, accompanied by twelve clergymen captured at the same time, was to be beheaded in Saint Mark’s Square, but, for some reason, this public execution did not take place, and twelve pigs and a bull were substituted for the condemned in order to appease the public. That same Thursday, the doge watched the Strengths of Hercules,[2] a game consisting of the construction of a human pyramid with a base of eight men locked arm in arm and capped with a child. In addition, an acrobat equipped with wings glided down a rope stretched between the top of the bell tower and the Doges’ Palace balcony. Taking this aerial route, he arrived in front of the doge, offered him compliments and flowers, and then showered poetry and sonnets upon the crowd, enjoyed even by the least literate. A war of fists was another gift of lively amusement for the spectators. In this bizarre jousting match, two sides advanced atop a narrow bridge with no parapet, namely the Saint Barnabas bridge, and each forced his way through, knocking his adversaries into the water. Seeing the fighters fall like grapes into the water, the spectators beat their hands together as wildly as possible.

The whole of Venice was consumed in this rejoicing, in the enthusiasm of the crowd, in this emulation of which paintings and engravings give us a rather sketchy idea, in the joyful stamping of feet and cheering for the conqueror, in the freedom reigning sovereign over the city, encouraged by the incognito mask that, for the moment, suppressed all decorum and social inequality! The mask was a constant custom in Venetian mores. A mask was required to enter the gaming rooms, or ridotti, densely crowded with men and women. It was not unusual to see costumed nobles walk into the Doges’ Palace, removing their domino in the Grand Council’s antechamber. No one considered it scandalous to run into masked visitors in convent reception rooms or at gala dinners where the doge would bestow purple robes on the magistrates. Once promised in marriage, a young noblewoman might conceal her features under a velvet hood, and no one would see her face uncovered except for her fiancé and those privileged people to whom this rare favour was accorded.

9. The Grand Canal in the Vicinity ofSanta Maria della Carita, 1726.

Oiloncanvas,90x132cm.

PrivateCollection.

Though these young women lived like prisoners inside palaces with barred windows, somewhat like Oriental women, occupying themselves with embroidery and making the marvellous lace on which Venice prided itself, they were suddenly emancipated through marriage and never again knew such crippling restraints on their freedom to be alluring. Those whose behaviour remained irreproachable drew from their devotion a self-restraint imposed neither by a family-oriented mindset nor the opinion of a libertine society. Since marriage was considered a formality importing little gravity, this forgetting of all duty led naturally to an abandonment of family life. They would spend the entire day out in the open air. Casinos served as a rendezvous point. There was something for the ladies, as well as for their husbands. Their children were like pretty dolls, dressed in rich outfits and prepared with good manners. As for the adolescents, they shocked travellers with the rowdiness that Venetians found amusing.

Discipline having lost its authority in schools, total capriciousness reigned in education. That of the writer Goldoni can serve as an example. In Rimini, bored with philosophical subtleties and passionate about ancient clowns and the theatre, he found a troupe of comedians made up almost entirely of his own countrymen. Under the pretext of going to Chioggia to kiss and greet his mother, he boarded their gondola and embarked on their journey. After that jaunt, having received a scholarship to a theological school in Pavia, he took up wearing the cloth with other worldly and stylish young abbots. But instead of applying himself to canon or civil law, he concentrated on fencing and the pleasurable arts, that is to say, all the games of society that a perfect gentleman could not ignore. Nevertheless, this life of extravagance did not prevent him, when in Chioggia, from composing a sermon that conferred on him a reputation for eloquence.

As far as convents were concerned, the cloister did not prove to be an adequate barrier between the recluses and the outside world. One of Longhi’s most interesting canvases at the Correr Museum is precisely a representation of a visit by patricians to a nunnery. The impression is entirely profane. Through the barred windows, the nuns and boarders appear to lend a self-satisfied ear to the sounds from outside. For the amusement of this attractive company, whose cuffs and garments bear typically Venetian floral embroidery, a small stage has been set up in a corner, while a beggar asks alms from a group of noble lords.

10. Capriccio: the Rialto Bridge and theChurch of San Giorgio Maggiore, c. 1750.

Oiloncanvas,167.6x114.3cm.

TheNorthCarolinaMuseumofArt,Raleigh.

11. The Rialto Bridge from the South-west, c. 1740-1745.

Pencilandink,26.6x36.7cm.

TheRoyalCollection,London.

12. The Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge,looking from the South, c. 1727.

Oiloncopperplate,45.5x62.5cm.

PrivateCollection.

13. Molo and Riva degli Schiavoni, c. 1727.

Oiloncopperplate,43x58.5cm.

PrivateCollection.

Hardly interested in mysticism, the Venetians loved the ecstasy of religious ceremonies, the processions dazzling with priestly ornamentations, the golden dais, the unfurled banners, the doge and the patriarch, the throng of clergymen, and the six companies from the Scuole Grande.[3] For them, religion was equivalent to patriotism. Hadn’t Saint Mark’s body, which was spirited away from Alexandria, become a holy relic, a kind of Palladium? Just as the people shouted, “Siamo Venzian! e poi cristiani” (Venetian first, then Christian!), the clergy itself did not always kindly receive instructions from the Holy See. Moreover, men of the cloth had been overtaken by mistrust for the government. From the moment that a man enjoyed any benefit from the Church, be it a diploma or priesthood, he was immediately excluded from any public office and debarred from any positions he could have held. Likewise, every minister of the Republic was prohibited from appealing to the pope for a red hat, or for any prelacy.

The Inquisition still existed in Venice during the eighteenth century, but the Roman legal representatives never resembled the sinister delegates of Philip II in Spain. Moreover, three lay nobles, designated by the Senate, who had the power to annul any sentence handed down by the Holy Office, were assistants to ecclesiastical advisers. More fearsome in name than in act, this tribunal limited itself to a right to censorship only in relation to literary and artistic works. It was under this authority that Veronese was summoned to explain the presence of useless characters and improper details in his religious paintings. He used the following defence: “All of us painters are something akin to madmen and poets, acting according to the fancy and whims of our imaginations”. For his nominal “sentence”, he was forced to incorporate certain changes to the vast compositions he had painted for the refectory of the convent of Saint John and Saint Paul. One can easily foresee just how much this law of censure had become illusory during Canaletto’s time.

Trade relations brought Jews, Greeks, Muslims, and, later, Reformists, into the Piazza. The majority of European nations had a neighbourhood and a consul in Venice. For example, Jews and Greeks were stationed north of the city. However, while the Venetians wisely employed a freedom of belief in their hospitality, they rejected any doctrines. Thus, neither Luther nor Calvin counted a single one of Saint Mark’s children among their new followers. However, certain Epicurean theories, which had newly been brought to light through Cesare Cremonini’s brilliant commentaries, found more credit with them. This famous interpreter of the philosophers of Antiquity at Padua University had no fear of teaching that the soul was transmissible like the body, and thus was not immortal. Many nobles, having accepted this materialist and atheistic system, applied its conclusions to their lives. In this way, a veritable paganism was introduced not only into minds, but also into mores. This total absence of scruples had already appeared two centuries before in the influence that Aretino enjoyed. Was not his insolent pretence of posing as the arbiter of destinies tolerated? Showered with pensions and gold chains from nobles, he lived like a great lord among his contemporaries who flattered him and shuddered to see his stairs sullied by the feet of visitors who came to hear and admire him.

14. The Bucintoro returning to the Molo.

Oiloncanvas.TheBowesMuseum,

BarnardCastle.

15. A Regatta on the Grand Canal, c. 1733-1734.

Oiloncanvas,77.2x125.7cm.

TheRoyalCollection,London.

The Nobility

These patricians, however, jealously guarded the secret to their nobility, the oldest in all of Europe. Certain families could still boastfully count among their ancestors those who had elected the first doge in the seventh century. One of his successors, Gradenigo, attained a truly revolutionary success for the aristocracy by abolishing, in 1297, the custom of annually renewing the Grand Council. He then declared as irremovable all those who had been a part of the Council for four years and granted the male descendents the right to sit in the same role as their fathers. This was the origin of the famous libro d’oro,[4] in which the names of permanently noble families appeared. Failure to register meant the forfeit of nobility. Plebeians and foreigners could likewise be registered after they proved, through their actions, their allegiance to the State. Following the Chioggia War (1378-1381), thirty families in the nation were given noble status in this way. The registry was then reopened in 1775 to remedy the impoverishment of an entire caste, adding commoners who had the most assets.