Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Canaletto's nephew Bernardo Bellotto (1721-80) also adopted the
camera oscura
in his
painting process, though his expressionistic landscapes use strong
chiaroscuro
(shadow
and light contrasts). His paintings hang in the Accademia alongside
San Marco Basin with
San Giorgio and Giudecca
by Francesco Guardi (1712-93), whose Impressionistic ap-
proach shows Venice's glories reflected in the lagoon. Among the last great
vedutisti
was
Venetian Impressionist Emma Ciardi (1879-1933), who captured Venetian mysteries un-
folding amid shimmering early-morning mists in luminous landscapes at Ca' Rezzonico
and Ca' Pesaro.
Lucky Stiffs: Venetian Funerary Sculpture
Bookending Venice's accomplishments in painting are its masterpieces in sculpture.
Venice kept its sculptors busy, with 200 churches needing altars, fire-prone Palazzo Du-
cale requiring near-constant rebuilding for 300 years, and especially tombs for nobles with
political careers cut short by age, plague and intrigue. The tomb of Doge Marco Corner in
Zanipolo by Pisa's Nino Pisano (c 1300-68) is a sprawling wall monument with a
massive, snoozing doge that somewhat exaggerated his career: Corner was doge for under
three years.
Venice's Pietro Lombardo (1435-1515) and his sons Tullio (1460-1532) and Antonio
(1458-1516) kept busy sculpting heroic, classical monuments to short-lived dogi: doge
for a year Nicolo Marcello (1473-74), Pietro Mocenigo (1474-76) and Andrea Vendramin
(1476-78). This last gilded marble monument was probably completed under Tullio, who
literally cut corners: he sculpted the figures in half relief, and chopped away part of Pis-
ano's Corner tomb to make room for Vendramin. Tullio's strong suit was the ideal beauty
of his faces, as you can see in his bust of a young male saint at Chiesa di Santo Stefano.
Antonio Canova (1757-1822) is the most prominent sculptor to emerge from the Ven-
eto, and his pyramid tomb intended for Titian at I Frari would become his own funerary
masterpiece. Mourners hang their heads and clutch one another, scarcely aware that their
diaphanous garments are slipping off; even the great winged lion of St Mark is curled up
in grief. Don't let his glistening Orpheus and Eurydice in Museo Correr fool you: Can-
ova's seamless perfection in glistening marble was achieved through rough drafts mod-
elled in gypsum, displayed at his studio outside Asolo, the Gipsoteca Canoviana.
