Venetian Beginnings

Painted city views (or vedute in Italian) became immensely popular in eighteenth-century Europe. British aristocrats in particular, when visiting Italy during their educational journey across Europe (the “Grand Tour”), sought pictorial souvenirs of key destinations, especially Venice, as proof of their worldliness. 

The preeminent painter who catered to this market was the Venetian Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697–1768), known as Canaletto (“little canal”). The son of a theatrical set designer, he merged optical accuracy and painterly imagination to transform Venice’s unique urban environment into an idealized stage. Whether showing busy quays and canals or the Doge’s ceremonial barge (the Bucintoro) during its annual procession to the Adriatic Sea, his paintings present Venice as an ideal of republican virtue, maritime power, and ceremonial splendor. Canaletto’s compositions were widely sought after and contemporaries noted that they possessed such luminosity it was as if they were lit from within.

Canal’s nephew Bernardo Bellotto (1722–1780) began his career in Venice, training in his uncle’s workshop. He even adopted the name “Canaletto” himself to underscore his artistic lineage and increase his market appeal. To avoid confusion, this exhibition refers to Canal as Canaletto and his nephew as Bellotto. It traces how both artists creatively approached veduta painting and brought it to new settings across Europe, with Canaletto traveling to London and Bellotto, via Dresden, to Vienna.