As his career developed Canaletto’s market was the rich British aristocrats visiting Italy in the Grand Tour and most of his work is destined for these clients, however The Stonemason’s Yard is an early work and pre-dates his more commercial phase. The choice of subject is the most obvious deviation from the popular classical and mythological scenes and unlike much of his other work which features great parades and pageants in both Venice and London.Ĭanaletto’s work is usually topographical and filled with precise detail so we can assume that a Stonemason’s Yard did stand on the banks of this canal in the early seventeen hundreds. Aliki Braine confirms that this is an accurate depiction of Campo San Vidal (2: p.296). The Stonemason’s Yard – Canaletto, c.1725Ĭanaletto (1697 – 1768) is best known for his “landmark views of Venice” and this everyday scene of an industrial space set against the skyline of Venice is an unusual work. The two curtains of trees also act as the middle ground that increases the emphasis on the foreground subject. The foreground grassy knoll is the stage between the curtains and the background is indistinct and hazy as if replicating a theatre backdrop. There is a strong group of trees to the right and a much weaker, less significant, but balancing tree line to the left. Watteau uses the compositional device of coulisses, or theatre wings to frame his main subject but like the general level of detail it is a watered-down version of the technique. The landscape contains many of the compositional features of Poussin and Claude who had been leading proponents of Baroque landscapes in the previous century but whilst the structure may be similar the precision and realistic detail that made Poussina and Claude’s work influential has now gone. As previously discussed ( here) since the fifteenth century landscape was most usually the setting for, rather than the subject of paintings and with few exceptions this trend continued into the eighteenth century.Īs a consequence we must recognise that Watteau is primarily interested in representing the narrative of a group people about to embark on a voyage to Cythera where, according to myth, they will meet their ideal partner in love. Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684 – 1721) was considered to be the greatest French painter of his time and was instrumental in shaping the Rococo style. The Embarkation for Cythera – Jean Antoine Watteau 1717
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