53. Rome: the Arch of Constantine, 1742.

Oil on canvas, 185.4 x 105.4 cm.

The Royal Collection, London.

 

 

On his return, Canaletto had the good fortune of working freely and continuously for an enlightened art enthusiast, Count Francesco Algarotti, and the English consul Joseph Smith, who was to play an important role in his life.[13] Canaletto never left Venice again. He worked constantly over the next twenty-five years. Complete silence and something like a thick fog hang heavy over this period of his life when he worked busily. Only museums speak out on his behalf, more so than any memoirs, newspapers or chronicles of that time. Hundreds of canvases bear witness to the fact that this painter never stopped working or perfecting himself as he accumulated twenty-five to thirty views of Venice, which was a considerable feat during a time when paintings were methodically, meticulously and slowly carried out. This was because of the painstaking process of correction and revision needed to achieve an infinite fineness of detail and the finishing touches. Each of Canaletto’s canvases provides us with visual proof of the techniques and successes of painting in this era.

 

More than nine hundred paintings made up the first part of his oeuvre. His Roman and Venetian periods overlap. In the little we know about his life, there is no specific point demarcating a period devoted solely to his creative desires. For example, it is known that in 1730, when the Venetian glassmakers sent their best designer to study at Bohême Briati, and the Frenchman Dorigny finished his grand fresco for the Jesuit church, Canaletto executed one of his greatest masterpieces, the View of Santa Maria della Salute. Long considered his most perfect work, the admirable canvas was later found amongst four other works of no importance all bought by Louis XVIII for the rather modest price of 18,000 francs. Today the painting is in the Louvre.

 

“He was a hard worker”. That’s all one can say about Canaletto with any certainty. Between the time he returned to Rome and the time he left for London, at the beginning of 1746, there is nothing that reveals anything about his life in Venice. The painter was entirely consumed by work, whether in his workshop, which was built next to his home, with his easel in the street, or on his gondola, which he had transformed into a studio. Only his works bear witness to his life. This is partially explained by the fact that Venice was different from the rest of Italy, not only because of the way it was constituted but also because of its residents and climate. Immediately upon entering the lagoons, one no longer saw any vegetation or trees; however, an exuberance of a different kind of life appeared in the richness of forms and colours. Instead of contrasting from one another with implacable sharpness, the contours blend together as an invisible mist, floating endlessly through the atmosphere. It is only in Venice that one can appreciate the sun, whose most fleeting appearances were greeted by the Dutch. Canaletto, in particular, had studied all the poetry of light dancing on walls, façades and the rippling surface of the canals. In all of his works, the sea looks blue or freshly green, the gold and purple of twilights reflect through the scenery, and all shines like a trembling silver mirror. One’s vision is constantly stimulated as one watches for hours the brief sparkles along the crest of the waves, as one contemplates the continual changes of effect, and as one appreciates the magnificence of this scenery, eternally unchanged in its lines, infinitely changeable in colour.

 

In an astonishingly modern moment, Aretino describes these sensations with extreme accuracy. Titian, the addressee of these phrases, couldn’t have found words more fitting. He wrote: “My Dear Fellow, in spite of my usual habits, I dined alone today, or rather in the company of the feeling of disgust caused by this seasonal fever that will not allow me to savour any of my dishes. I occupied myself by watching the admirable spectacle of countless boats, filled with foreigners and Venetians enjoying not only the service, but the Grand Canal. As a man uncomfortable with himself, who knows not what to do with his mind and thoughts, I turn my eyes to the sky. Never since God created it has this sky been embellished with such a charming display of shadows and light! The atmosphere was such like those who envy Titian, because they cannot be Titian, would like to make it…In the first place, the buildings, although made of real stone, seemed artificial. Then there was the daylight that is, in certain places, pure and bright, and in others, dull and cloudy. Consider another marvel: the thick, humid clouds hanging just above the city roofs before diving behind the buildings in the background. The colour of the entire area on the right was faded, suspended in a mixture of grey, brown and black. I admired the varied hues that these clouds displayed before my gaze. The closest seemed to be blazing like flames in a family hearth. Those farther off in the distance were a less ardent vermilion red. Oh! The fine brushstrokes colouring the sky and tucking it behind the palace, exactly as Titian paints his landscapes! In certain sections, a blue green appeared, and in others a greenish blue, colours inextricably mixed by the capricious invention of Nature, mistress of all masters. It is she who, with light and dark hues, obscured or refined forms according to her imagination. And I, who knows that your paintbrush is your very soul, cried out, three or four times, ‘Titian! Where are you?’…”

 

It is the hand of man, we must avow, that completes the landscape. Among the pink and white façades reflected in the canals giving the illusion of a dream city, how many are but marvels of fancy and fantasy? The stone and marble had never assumed a more poetic form. Eastern style and Gothic art were combined to create a specific kind of architecture characterized by the most capricious and rich of ornamentations. It seems that by multiplying the serpentine or porphyry columns, by constructing along the pillar tops an extraordinary flora of stone, and by filling mosaics with delicately carved pieces, Venetian builders had, above all, wanted to banish from their city austere and cold design weighing heavily upon the viewer. If such was their goal, they achieved it brilliantly.