95. The Port of Dolo.

Engraving, 32.3 x 48.5 cm.

UCL Museums & Collections, London.

 

 

In a series of fourteen paintings that the consul Smith[17] had acquired, Canaletto reproduced every the aspect of the Grand Canal that, during his time, had lost none of its splendour or liveliness. Heading from the Rialto Bridge towards the Doges’ Palace, he depicts the Foscari, the church of charity, and Santa Maria della Salute, next to the customs house at the mouth of the Grand Canal. This latter sanctuary, one of those most beloved by Venetians, maintained its splendour for a long time. A modern church, Balthazar Longhena built it after the Venetian senate made a vow to Saint Mary of Health so that the plague might come to an end. The first brick was laid on March 25, 1631, by the doge Nicolas Contarini and the patriarch Jean Tiepolo. Inside, the power of certain compositions by Titian and Tintoretto[18] make the insipidness of Giordano’s paintings stand out even more; outside, the architecture of this church, comparable to coral vegetation from the sea, seems to have been invented for the sake of purists’ desperation. However, Canaletto must have liked it because not only did he often paint it from multiple perspectives, respecting its lighting and its pediments peopled with statues, but he also indicates this with his brilliantly improvised etchings, which group imaginary monuments according to fancy.

 

At the Munich and Grenoble museums and also in the Louvre one can find reproductions of this edifice in different forms. The painting on exhibit in Grenoble was composed from the point where the Grand Canal opens into the sea. A heavy storm cloud, suspended above the seaside customs house and Santa Maria, is reflected in the water and very successfully bends the tone of the whole. The soundness of artistic touch and the correctness of colour equally stand out in the Louvre canvas. The cupola’s smallest details, which take up one of its sides, are designed with the most rigorous exactitude. It does not, however, show any dryness of style. On the horizon, the vessels along the Esclavon Quay bathe in subdued light, smoke and white vapours crawl across the sky, a big boat bearing the Venetian flag sits stationary in the foreground, while several other vessels loaded with exotic goods depart upstream. Scattered across the stone sidewalks, walking through the bright sunlight or under the refreshing shade, several characters vivify the painting with their ethereal silhouettes. Strollers, porters, beggars begging atop a staircase, two boatmen pulling a clumsy fool from the water in one corner; these figures appear to be later additions, perhaps by Tiepolo’s brush, though the issue of collaboration in Canaletto’s works has certainly been exaggerated. In short, Canaletto seems to be an engaging colourist and a conscientious painter of architecture for whom the laws of linear and ethereal perspective were no longer a secret. But his etchings uncover an entirely different aspect of the artist. In his free time, he learned to use the pen with equal ease as he used the brush.