Canaletto: The Complete Story
Canaletto was the Venetian painter who turned his city into the most desirable view in the world. His sunlit pictures of the canals, the Grand Canal, St Mark's Square, the regattas, are so crisp and detailed they look almost photographic, and they made Venice the ultimate souvenir three centuries before the camera.
His real name was Giovanni Antonio Canal. Canaletto, the little Canal, was the nickname that stuck and became one of the most bankable brands in art.
Born: Venice, 1697
Known for: the veduta, precise views of Venice
Died: Venice, 1768
The view as a luxury good
Canaletto specialized in the veduta, the detailed city view. His main customers were wealthy young Britons doing the Grand Tour, the long European trip that finished a gentleman's education. They wanted a dazzling picture of Venice to hang back home.
He met that demand so well that more Canalettos hang in Britain than anywhere else, the holiday photos of the eighteenth century aristocracy.
Did he cheat with a camera?
Canaletto almost certainly used a camera obscura, a box that projects a live image onto a surface, to help map out his scenes. It gave his perspective its uncanny accuracy.
But he was no slave to it. He quietly adjusted buildings, widened canals and shifted landmarks to make a better picture. His Venice is more perfect, and more sunlit, than the real one.
The capricci
Alongside his real views he painted the capriccio, an invented scene that mixes real monuments with imaginary ones, or sets a famous building somewhere it never stood. It let him play architect and fantasist.
These flights of fancy were as prized as his accurate views. You can read about the form in what is a capriccio.
Ten years on the Thames
When war in Europe choked off the Grand Tour and his Venetian sales, Canaletto did the logical thing. He followed his customers home. He spent about a decade in England, painting London, the Thames and country houses with the same bright clarity.
His views of old London Bridge and Westminster are now precious records of a city that has almost entirely vanished.
Quick answers about Canaletto
What is Canaletto famous for?
Precise, sunlit views of Venice, the veduta. See what is landscape painting.
What was his real name?
Giovanni Antonio Canal. Canaletto was a nickname.
Did he use a camera?
Most likely a camera obscura, but he freely adjusted reality for a better picture.
Why he still matters
Canaletto sold the idea that a place could be a possession, and shaped how the world has pictured Venice ever since. Every glossy travel image owes him something. See how he built that luminous depth in what is oil painting.
One last fact. His nephew Bernardo Bellotto also painted city views and even used the name Canaletto abroad, which is why some so called Canalettos of Warsaw and Dresden are really by a different man.