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1697-1768 • Italian • Painter • Rococo
"Mr. Smith engaged Canaletto to work for him for many years at a very low price and sold his works to the English at much higher rates. " - Horace Walpole, 18th Century
Canaletto began his career in the studio of his father, a painter and designer of theatrical scenery, especially for the opera. He excelled in "vistas" or "views" (veduta in Italian), which he began painting in 1720. As WALPOLE observes in the quotation above, Canaletto worked for the British consul to Venice, Joseph Smith, and dedicated a set of 31 ETCHINGS, published between 1744 and 1746, to him. Smith acted as intermediary when Englishmen on the GRAND TOUR wanted to buy Canaletto's views of Venice and its great festivals.
During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48), when there were few tourists in Venice, Canaletto went to England. There he took the Thames River and British country houses for his subjects. He returned to Venice in 1755. Canaletto's pleasure in Venetian light, his care in representing the surfaces of Venetian buildings, the glowing animation of the skies, and the activity below them all contribute to the appeal of his paintings, especially to visitors who, having returned home, wished to recapture the atmosphere of their sojourn. To achieve his effect, Canaletto changed his viewpoints, moved closer and farther away, rotated some buildings, and changed some rooflines-in short, the views he painted accommodated his aesthetic taste as much as they imitated what he saw. It is thought that he used the CAMERA OBSCURA as a complement to other devices, from ruler and compass to CLAUDE GLASS, and to any available optical aids that he might have found compositionally useful. But while he benefited from such implements, he was not constrained by them. Canaletto's light, delicate atmospheres are consistent with the Rococo period, but his work is not completely coherent with that style.