Canaletto, Antonio (1697-1768)

The Bacino di San Marco - the basin in front of St Mark's, in Venice, Italy - featuring the Palazzo Ducale is a scene that Italian painter Canaletto painted many times. One of his patrons was the contemporary duke of Bedford, who commissioned no fewer than 24 Venetian views.

Italian painter. He painted highly detailed views (vedute) of Venice (his native city), and of London and the River Thames (1746-56). Typical of his Venetian works is Venice: Regatta on the Grand Canal (c. 1735; National Gallery, London).

Much of his work is detailed and precise, with a warm light and a sparkling of tiny highlights on the green waters of canals and rivers. The Upper Reaches of the Grand Canal c. 1738 (National Gallery, London) is an example. His drawings and etchings are often more lively than his paintings, but even where his paintings are at their most mechanical they show a strong sense of design and the ability to create the illusion of space. His presence in England was influential on topographical artists and others - his brushwork may well have given its example to William Hogarth and Richard Wilson, while his drawings were models followed by Thomas Girtin and J M W Turner. In Venice, Francesco Guardi, somewhat younger, was his follower, though developing a freer, lighter manner.

Canaletto was the son of the scene painter and designer Bernardo Canal, with whom he worked as a scene painter in his early years. He went to Rome in 1719 and began to paint architectural views in emulation of Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691-1765); returning to Venice, he devoted himself to views of the city, producing many for export to England. From 1730 Joseph Smith (1682-1770), later British consul, was a principal patron; the paintings and drawings executed for him now being mostly in the Royal Collection at Windsor. Canaletto's 1733 series of etchings of Venice and the lagoons was dedicated to Smith. Encouraged to visit England, he worked 1746-56 mainly in London and its environs, with brief intervals in Venice, finally returning in the latter year to his native city.

His style shows considerable variation, his early maturity being splendidly represented by the View of Venice, also known as The Stonemason's Yard (c. 1730, National Gallery, London) and the Scuola di San Rocco, probably a little later. This work shows Canaletto's great skill in figure painting as well as architecture. No doubt because of the sameness of his themes, his style became mechanically dexterous as time went on, and his use of the camera obscura inclined him to exact imitation rather than creative design. His work in England, though of great interest, shows a harder manner than his earlier productions, and he seems to have found English landscape a difficult problem, though his views of London and its river are among his finest works.