Canaletto and Venice: where imagination and reality work hand in hand

There are certain cities in the world that live in the collective imagination through the medium of various artistic forms such as painting, photography and cinema. Some examples would be New York as immortalized in film, or Paris as recreated by the Impressionists, or Venice as evoked by Canaletto. In this article, we will discuss the latter pairing, and attempt to understand the Venice that emerges from the works of Giovanni Antonio Canal, the artist’s full name. Let’s begin with a statistical figure: the number of his paintings on display in his city are relatively few when compared to those housed in U.S. and British museums. The reason is simple. From the 1700s onwards, these works represented breathtaking mementos of what was known as the Grand Tour. His canvases were acquired by rich tourists as a way of bringing home with them something of Italy, particularly paintings of its famous monuments. Canaletto’s landscapes were undoubtedly highly prized. When did Canaletto begin to paint his city of birth? It was...