139. The Clock Tower in the Piazza San Marco, 1728-1730.

Oil on canvas, 52.1 x 69.5 cm.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.

 

 

Colombini, Marieschi, Vinsentini, Guardi and Longhi

 

During his life, Canaletto inspired a certain number of painters who, in their canvases, chose to follow the path he had traced, some receiving advice directly from the master, others simply drawing their inspiration from his example. Among several more or less forgotten names, from a number by no means insignificant, one can single out Battaglioni, Colombini, Visentini, Marieschi and Guardi, the last being a very worthy successor to the brilliant landscape artist. There were still others who painted Venice after Canaletto, especially the English water colourists like Bonnington, Roberts and Turner and the Frenchmen Joyant and Ziem. A lot of artists like Fletscher, Brustoloni, Muller, Wagner, Gautier and Brunet-Debaisnes also engraved in the Canaletto style. Such an attempt on the part of all of these artists points to a certain kind of courage, as they chose to confront the towering parallel inevitably lurking in the minds of their audience.

 

Colombini of Treviso excelled in the science of perspective, executing paintings for the Dominicans in his birth city that the good monks accommodatingly displayed.[22] It’s difficult to assess Jacopo Marieschi as a painter because his best canvases are currently marked as anonymous or classified under different names.[23] On the other hand, this architect, who very skilfully portrayed the human figure in the style of Lanzi, left behind a very interesting collection of plates under the title Venetiariim urbis prospectus celebriores.[24] The characters are here presented with wit, and the manners, promenades and games of his contemporaries are described with often biting detail. However, Marieschi remains far behind Canaletto in the science of lighting and the simplicity of his work. He seems to have approached his copperplates with hesitation. Though he had a real aptitude for art, he exhibited a certain clumsiness in the manoeuvring of his tools.

 

Turning to Antonio Visentini, mostly a master of his own talents, we can reproach in him the coldness and monotony often found in his works. A student of Pellegrini, he engraved copies of Canaletto’s works in which one searches in vain for the slightest attempt to reproduce the beautiful colour and picturesque effects of the originals. In 1742, he published a textbook on paintings of the Grand Canal and Venice’s principal buildings. This work, presenting his own works alongside those of Canaletto, contains the conscientious but unfortunately somewhat mediocre reproduction of a series of paintings painted by the master and owned by Smith. The information about the artists is often too brief. One gets the impression, however, that Visentini, during the course of a career that was longer that it was productive, must have resorted to the accommodating brushes of Tiepolo and Zuccherelli[25] to liven up his own compositions.

 

Francisco Guardi was Canaletto’s best student and his most artistically-powerful disciple. He brought views of urban landscapes and cities to life and at times almost surpassed his master. He became a veritable master himself, becoming all the greater the more that one studies his career, gradually discovering that his talent goes beyond all limits. Moreover, throughout his life, he sowed just as much talent and reaped just as much fame in the art world that he traversed after Canaletto. He is often considered as another Canaletto, the admiration often vacillating between the two in those galleries where their canvases hang side by side. Although Canaletto was more methodical and more knowledgeable in his use of perspective, more precise his architectural details, Guardi employed a more attractive freedom of style in his work, did not fear becoming to commonplace and seduced the eye by blanketing his canvases in light. Beneath his outward frivolity, he was a hard worker. His works, filled with sunlight and gaiety, were especially sought out by the English. The Wallace Collection in London has about ten of his canvases, compared to seventeen of Canaletto’s.