Showing posts with label Francesco Guardi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Francesco Guardi. Show all posts

Francesco Guardi - Venice: Piazza San Marco [c.1760]


The painting is one of the earliest of Guardi's works as a view painter, probably dating from about 1760. It shows the most famous of Venetian squares, the Piazza San Marco, with the medieval cathedral and its bell tower in the background and the 16th-century public offices, the Procuratie Vecchie, left, and the Procuratie Nuove, right, with shops and cafés to each side. In Guardi's painting figures and architecture are more freely handled than was customary with Canaletto, and the crowd that idles in the Piazza is given greater prominence.

[Oil on canvas, 72.4 x 119.1 cm]
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Francesco Guardi - View of the Venetian Lagoon with the Tower of Malghera [c.1770s]


Among the most famous later works of Guardi are evocations, almost in the manner of Whistler, of the landscape and atmosphere of his native Venice and its surroundings. The tower of Malghera, a relic of the ancient fortifications of the city and demolished in the early 19th century, lay on the edge of the Venetian lagoon near Mestre. In Guardi's painting nature is more evident than the work of man. The tower and the fishing boats in the foreground form the two focuses of the composition which is principally a study of the water of the lagoon and a clouded Venetian sky.

[Oil on wood, 21.3 x 41.3 cm]
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