Venice: Piazza San Marco, Seen from Campo San Basso
Venice in the Age of Canaletto
The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art: October 8, 2009-January 10, 2010
The landscapes of Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768) are arguably the most familiar artistic products of eighteenth-century Venice. For all their ability to reproduce immediately recognizable views of the city, however, they are curiously devoid of the exuberance, sensuality, and rich coloring of most Venetian art of the period. When Canaletto’s paintings are compared with the works of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Francesco Guardi, and Marco Ricci, they are revealed as beautiful but rather anomalous creations.
Venice in the Age of Canaletto will consider Canaletto in this Venetian context focusing upon the contrast between the artist’s paintings and the works of his contemporaries who were also active in the city. The exhibition will explore the strange tension which exists between his austere, seemingly realistic, almost Neo-Classical vedute, or cityscapes and the exuberant, pastelline fantasies, religious pictures, and historical dramas of the Venetian Rococo. With approximately 40 loans from across the United States, the exhibition will be organized around four main themes: Staging Venice-in which public images of the city will considered, and in particular their role in fashioning a Venetian identity; Imaging the Intimate: Venetian Genre Painting-a portion of the exhibition that will explore genre images, which, in contrast to the vedute, depict both the public and private lives of the subject in a far more intimate manner; Private Images for Public Space: Religious Art in 18th-Century Venice-which will focus upon works for ecclesiastical settings and how religious art of churches and chapels reflects both the individual needs and desires as well as popular taste; and finally Venice Adorned-which will consider the remarkable exuberance of the decorative arts produces in Venice at this time.
See this exhibition while at the Ringling International Arts Festival during regular Museum hours, 10 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. This exhibition is included with regular Museum admission. Call 941.358.3180 for advance tickets.
