The Piazzetta towards S. Giorgio Maggiore

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The Piazzetta towards S. Giorgio Maggiore: Canaletto

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Canaletto Oil Painting - The Piazzetta towards S. Giorgio Maggiore

Keywords: Piazzetta, towards, Giorgio, Maggiore

Work Overview: The Piazzetta towards S. Giorgio Maggiore
Canaletto
Date: 1727; Venice, Italy *
Style: Baroque
Genre: cityscape

This painting is part of a set of six large views of the Piazza San Marco and the Piazzetta in the heart of Venice. The series may have been Canaletto’s earliest commission from Joseph Smith, who sold his pre-eminent collection of paintings, prints and drawings by the artist to George III in 1762. Each view in the set, comprising four of upright and two of horizontal format, has been carefully composed so that architecture dominates either the left of the view, as here, or the right. Sharp diagonals are emphasised by the deep shadows cast by evening light. The paintings were probably arranged symmetrically in a room in Smith’s residence on the Grand Canal, the Palazzo Balbi (now Palazzo Mangilli-Valmarana). A closely related preparatory drawing for each view (also in the Royal Collection) may have been the basis for discussion between artist and patron. The care taken over the composition of the architecture and the changes made during the course of painting suggest that the balance and effect of the whole was important to both of them.

The left corner of the Palazzo Ducale and the column of San Marco frame the church and campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore. The set of paintings must date before 1726-8 when the crowning element of the campanile (in the centre of the present view) was altered from conical to onion shape; in 1774 it was replaced by the one seen today. The fluid, broad strokes, particularly those defining the figures, the strong diagonals and contrasts of light, can be found in Canaletto’s view of The Stonemason’s Yard (London, National Gallery) which has been dated 1725. It is generally agreed that the set precedes both that painting and the series of four paintings commissioned by Stefano Conti (private collection), datable 1725-6.

Canaletto combines several viewpoints and distorts topography for dramatic effect. For example, San Giorgio is heightened; and from this viewpoint there should be one upper window in the Palazzo Ducale, not two. Mathematical instruments were used to establish the architecture: a straight edge ruled out the right side of the column and perspective lines on the Palazzo Ducale. In the preparatory drawings a beam and pulley projects from the loggia of the Palazzo, discernible as a pentiment in the final painting. The paintings appear to have arrived in London unframed; if so, this would strengthen the suggestion that they had been set into a room in one of Smith’s houses in Italy. George III framed them in English ‘Maratta’ frames when he hung them in the Entrance Hall of Buckingham House.

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Canaletto

Work Overview