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Lot Essay
A Venetian painter par excellence, Guglielmo Ciardi approached his subject in a manner that was wholly different from artists of other nationalities who painted in the city in the latter half of the 19th century. Instead of the obvious sites of La Serenissima, ever popular with patrons and rooted in a long tradition of vedute artists stretching back 150 years, Ciardi sought above all to render the light and atmosphere of the Lagoon, and the inland areas of the Veneto region.
Together with Giacomo Favretto and Luigi Nono, Ciardi is credited with introducing such modern subject matter to Venice, thereby renewing Venetian painting in the second half of the 19th century.
In the present work the artist deftly captures the luminous effects of the sunset as it plays against the myriad textures of the water in the Lagoon.
Ciardi depicted the Lagoon under all kinds of atmospheric conditions, but in the late 1870s and early 1880s he developed paintings of the calm sea under bright sunlight to such a level of refinement that they have come to define the artist. The present work is a prime example of this; the contrasting and sharply defined areas of light and shadow and the almost geometric shapes of the sails, standing proud against the sky, show a particular debt to the Macchiaioli, but the whole is somewhat softer, characterised by shimmering reflections and a suffused atmosphere of extraordinary stillness in which sky and water seem to melt together.
Together with Giacomo Favretto and Luigi Nono, Ciardi is credited with introducing such modern subject matter to Venice, thereby renewing Venetian painting in the second half of the 19th century.
In the present work the artist deftly captures the luminous effects of the sunset as it plays against the myriad textures of the water in the Lagoon.
Ciardi depicted the Lagoon under all kinds of atmospheric conditions, but in the late 1870s and early 1880s he developed paintings of the calm sea under bright sunlight to such a level of refinement that they have come to define the artist. The present work is a prime example of this; the contrasting and sharply defined areas of light and shadow and the almost geometric shapes of the sails, standing proud against the sky, show a particular debt to the Macchiaioli, but the whole is somewhat softer, characterised by shimmering reflections and a suffused atmosphere of extraordinary stillness in which sky and water seem to melt together.