Canaletto (Antonio Canal),
A View of Walton Bridge, 1754.

Oil on canvas, 48.8 x 76.7 cm.

Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.

 

 

Nor was the second half of this century significantly more peaceful. It began in 1756 with all the major powers in Europe fighting the Seven Years War of Frederick II the Great of Prussia (1712-1786) who, with the two Schleswig Wars, had already brought his country to the edge of ruin against Austria’s Empress Maria Theresa. Those then involved were in fact intensively preoccupied on three other continents with their colonial wars, but in 1754 faced a war against each other; it was not until 1756 that they concluded a non-aggression pact.

 

The last quarter of the 18th century finally came to an end with a few fairly short wars: the war of the Bavarian Succession in the years 1778-1779, the war between Russia and Sweden (1788-1790) and that between Russia and Poland in 1792 (the fifth conflict between these two nations), which did not directly concern Europe. Meanwhile on Russia’s throne was Tsarina Catherine II, also called Catherine the Great (1729-1796), who established her country as a major power. The English and the French were still busy fighting each other, and the Native Americans had to come to terms with the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the United States of America. The century ended, after the French Revolution of 1789, with the Bombardment of Valmy (1792) and the Revolutionary Wars, which crossed with Napoleon I into the 19th century.