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Lot Essay
This brilliant view of Santa Maria Zobenigo, better known today as Santa Maria del Giglio, is one of a small number of topographical views of the campi of Venice which Francesco Guardi produced throughout his career as a vedutista. Others include a view of Santa Maria Formosa, a series of views of Campo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo and a series of views of the Arsenale.
Francesco Guardi, like many Venetian artists, was trained in the family studio and for most of his formative years assisted his elder brother, Gian Antonio, with the production of religious paintings. The exact attribution of these early works has remained contentious and it seems that Francesco continued to produce figurative works after his brother's death in 1760.
Gian Antonio is known to have painted of the staffage in a number of views of Venice by Michele Marieschi. However, he himself is not credited with the painting of any vedute. At some point, possibly in the 1750's, Francesco saw the potential for a lucrative career in the production of vedute for foreign visitors to Venice and broke free from the family business of painting altarpieces. Exactly when he embarked on this new trajectory is not fully understood: Morassi and Zampetti both attribute two genre scenes in the Ca' Rezzonico to Francesco and date them to the 1740s, making them his earliest scenes from contemporary life. Although dependent upon prototypes by Longhi, they already highlight Guardi's idiomatic rapidly brushed-in figures and a sensitivity to the possibilities offered by evocations of daily life in rococo Venice.
Guardi's development as a painter of views seems to have come later. Morassi argued as early as 1963 (op. cit.) that he worked in Canaletto's studio which would date his beginnings as a view painter to some time after 1756 when Canaletto returned to Venice from England. Byam Shaw also notes that Guardi's contemporaries regarded him as a student of Canaletto one of whom, the procurator Pietro Gradenigo described Guardi in 1764 as a 'buon scolaro del rinomato Canaletto', noting that he had exhibited two views of Venice in the Piazza S. Marco that year, that they were painted for a 'forestiere inglese' and had been much admired. He added that they were painted with the aid of a 'camera ottica'.
This View of Santa Maria Zobenigo provides a remarkable insight into Guardi's complex relationship with the art of Canaletto and as Morassi notes, provides a unique opportunity to contrast the approach and style of these two great Venetian artists. Guardi's view is based upon an earlier composition painted in the 1730s by Canaletto as one of a set of twenty one for Sir Robert Harvey (fig. 1). The group is now dispersed; the View of Santa Maria Zobenigo now being in a private collection in New York. Guardi would have known Canaletto's composition from the engraving after it was published by Visentini in 1742. The engraving, however, is merely a point of departure. The more steeply angled disposition of the architecture, the rapidly diminishing scale of the buildings on the left, adding drama to the space, suggest the use, noted by Gradenigo, of a camera ottica. Moreover, the closer one looks, the artist's different intentions become increasingly clear. Canaletto's view is solid, the static figures providing anchorage to the space. The light is crystalline, the shadows deep and boldly painted, the doors of both church and corner shop firmly closed. Canaletto creates a rationally conceived, timeless vision of every-day Venice. Guardi, by contrast, brings drama and movement to every part of his canvas. Sardi's florid architecture towers vertiginously to the right, the main door is open and a curtain flaps through it; smoke issues from the chimney pots, washing flutters from an open window, the antique shop is now open and brightly gilded chairs stand out for sale in the square. As Morassi notes, 'on the one side (is) objective rationality, that is, the controlled visualisation of reality, on the other a reality transfigured by an inner emotive power and felt through a poetic sensibility'.
When it was exhibited in the celebrated Guardi exhibition of 1965, Zampetti dated this picture to the 1740s shortly after the publication of Visentini's print. Morassi notes, however, that Guardi was quite capable of using material some time after it was first available to him, such as his series of Ceremonies of the Installation of the Doge (Musée du Louvre, Paris) painted in the 1770s but after prints made by Giovanni Brustalon in 1763 after designs by Canaletto. Morassi dates this picture, the 1742 publication of Visentini's engravings notwithstanding, to the 1760's, describing it as a 'singular work of the mature period (1760-70), of a high level, splendid for its lucid light'. The collapse of the brick campanile behind S. Maria Zobenigo in 1774 provides a reasonable terminus ante quem.
Francesco Guardi, like many Venetian artists, was trained in the family studio and for most of his formative years assisted his elder brother, Gian Antonio, with the production of religious paintings. The exact attribution of these early works has remained contentious and it seems that Francesco continued to produce figurative works after his brother's death in 1760.
Gian Antonio is known to have painted of the staffage in a number of views of Venice by Michele Marieschi. However, he himself is not credited with the painting of any vedute. At some point, possibly in the 1750's, Francesco saw the potential for a lucrative career in the production of vedute for foreign visitors to Venice and broke free from the family business of painting altarpieces. Exactly when he embarked on this new trajectory is not fully understood: Morassi and Zampetti both attribute two genre scenes in the Ca' Rezzonico to Francesco and date them to the 1740s, making them his earliest scenes from contemporary life. Although dependent upon prototypes by Longhi, they already highlight Guardi's idiomatic rapidly brushed-in figures and a sensitivity to the possibilities offered by evocations of daily life in rococo Venice.
Guardi's development as a painter of views seems to have come later. Morassi argued as early as 1963 (op. cit.) that he worked in Canaletto's studio which would date his beginnings as a view painter to some time after 1756 when Canaletto returned to Venice from England. Byam Shaw also notes that Guardi's contemporaries regarded him as a student of Canaletto one of whom, the procurator Pietro Gradenigo described Guardi in 1764 as a 'buon scolaro del rinomato Canaletto', noting that he had exhibited two views of Venice in the Piazza S. Marco that year, that they were painted for a 'forestiere inglese' and had been much admired. He added that they were painted with the aid of a 'camera ottica'.
This View of Santa Maria Zobenigo provides a remarkable insight into Guardi's complex relationship with the art of Canaletto and as Morassi notes, provides a unique opportunity to contrast the approach and style of these two great Venetian artists. Guardi's view is based upon an earlier composition painted in the 1730s by Canaletto as one of a set of twenty one for Sir Robert Harvey (fig. 1). The group is now dispersed; the View of Santa Maria Zobenigo now being in a private collection in New York. Guardi would have known Canaletto's composition from the engraving after it was published by Visentini in 1742. The engraving, however, is merely a point of departure. The more steeply angled disposition of the architecture, the rapidly diminishing scale of the buildings on the left, adding drama to the space, suggest the use, noted by Gradenigo, of a camera ottica. Moreover, the closer one looks, the artist's different intentions become increasingly clear. Canaletto's view is solid, the static figures providing anchorage to the space. The light is crystalline, the shadows deep and boldly painted, the doors of both church and corner shop firmly closed. Canaletto creates a rationally conceived, timeless vision of every-day Venice. Guardi, by contrast, brings drama and movement to every part of his canvas. Sardi's florid architecture towers vertiginously to the right, the main door is open and a curtain flaps through it; smoke issues from the chimney pots, washing flutters from an open window, the antique shop is now open and brightly gilded chairs stand out for sale in the square. As Morassi notes, 'on the one side (is) objective rationality, that is, the controlled visualisation of reality, on the other a reality transfigured by an inner emotive power and felt through a poetic sensibility'.
When it was exhibited in the celebrated Guardi exhibition of 1965, Zampetti dated this picture to the 1740s shortly after the publication of Visentini's print. Morassi notes, however, that Guardi was quite capable of using material some time after it was first available to him, such as his series of Ceremonies of the Installation of the Doge (Musée du Louvre, Paris) painted in the 1770s but after prints made by Giovanni Brustalon in 1763 after designs by Canaletto. Morassi dates this picture, the 1742 publication of Visentini's engravings notwithstanding, to the 1760's, describing it as a 'singular work of the mature period (1760-70), of a high level, splendid for its lucid light'. The collapse of the brick campanile behind S. Maria Zobenigo in 1774 provides a reasonable terminus ante quem.