La Piera del Bando, Venice (The Doges’ Palace)

Canaletto (“Little Canal,” a nickname the young Giovanni Antonio earned as assistant to his father, the theatrical scene painter Bernardo Canal) is best remembered as the most successful city view painter of his time, having produced several hundred painted vedute over a long career, mostly in his native Venice. But Canaletto was also an accomplished etcher, and these are two characteristic scenes within Venice’s iconic configuration of public buildings and spaces. In the first, the prison is viewed in deep perspective across the footbridge connecting it to the Molo, the landing and public gathering space along the south side of the ducal palace. The partial view of the palace on the left helps identify the location of the prison, and the relation of the scene as a whole to the second view, which depicts the side of the ducal palace that faces westward onto the piazzetta. This view, in turn, includes a corner of the basilica, the eastern anchor to the Piazza San Marco, again on the far left, where a man speaks from the top of the Pietra del Bando, or proclamation stone. Hence, in just two closely observed scenes, Canaletto manages to evoke the entire core of a great city. As in all of Canaletto’s vedute, the scenes are well populated with interesting human figures, but it is the physical city, etched with as deep an appreciation for architectural detail as for structural masses and spaces, that is the clear subject of each.

(Andrew C. Weislogel, “Mirror of the City: The Printed View in Italy and Beyond, 1450–1940,” catalogue accompanying an exhibition organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, curated by Andrew C. Weislogel and Stuart M. Blumin, and presented at the Johnson Museum August 11–December 23, 2012)