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Lot Essay
This beautifully atmospheric view of the Rio dei Mendicanti is an exceptionally fine canvas by Francesco Guardi and displays the lyrical treatment of light so characteristic of the artist's late maturity. Dated to circa 1780 (Beddington, op. cit.), the picture is a superb example of Guardi’s late work that serves as a precursor to the revolutionary painting of Turner, Whistler and the Impressionists. Antonio Morassi (op. cit., I, p. 246), the pre-eminent Guardi scholar, considered the present canvas to be the finest of the six variants of this view while describing it as an ‘opera bellissima’.
Painted in late afternoon light, a strong diagonal shadow is cast across the austere façade of the Ospedale di San Lazaro e dei Mendicanti, conducting the viewer’s eye down the Rio towards the Fondamenta Nuova and the distant island of San Michele. The picture is not so much a topographical study in the tradition of Canaletto as an exercise in Guardi’s obsession with the transient effects of atmosphere and light. The role of architecture is seemingly subservient to the seductively subtle tonal symphony played out on the façade, while a few darting gondolas disturb the water and its reflections below. As Michael Levey observed, ‘Guardi’s love of movement, of pale tones and luminous skies, is based less on naturalism than on the heightened rococo of his century: its love of lightness, elegance and grace' (Painting in XVIII Century Venice, London, 1959, p. 103).
Although depicted by Guardi on several occasions, the canal is something of a backwater, rarely visited by travelers and, in turn, rarely the subject of works by vedutisti. One exception is Canaletto’s celebrated view of the Rio looking south (c.1723: Venice, Ca’ Rezzonico; fig. 1), an important early work which incorporates, opposite the church, a squero (gondola building yard) that is just visible on the left of the present composition, and which still survives to this day. Canaletto’s picture also shows the wooden footbridge from which, very probably, Guardi would have taken this view. The neighborhood had a particular significance for the artist; Guardi’s mother, who died in 1743, lived for forty years in a house on the Fondamenta Nuove, while the artist himself is recorded as living in the Fondamenta in the parish of SS. Apostoli. Furthermore, in 1757 the artist married Maria Pagan in the church of San Michele in Isola, which can be seen here in the distance.
The façade of the ospedale, which dominates this view of the Rio dei Mendicanti, incorporates the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti, commissioned from Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548-1616; fig. 2), arguably the most important architect in the Republic after the death of Andrea Palladio in 1580. The church's canal-facing façade, designed by Antonio Sardi and completed after his death by his son, Giuseppe, in 1673, was funded through a bequest from Jacopo Gallo, a wealthy Venetian merchant. The interior of the church contains altarpieces by Jacopo Tintoretto (Saint Ursula and the eleven thousand Virgins, c.1550-55) and Paolo Veronese (Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John, c.1580).
Painted in late afternoon light, a strong diagonal shadow is cast across the austere façade of the Ospedale di San Lazaro e dei Mendicanti, conducting the viewer’s eye down the Rio towards the Fondamenta Nuova and the distant island of San Michele. The picture is not so much a topographical study in the tradition of Canaletto as an exercise in Guardi’s obsession with the transient effects of atmosphere and light. The role of architecture is seemingly subservient to the seductively subtle tonal symphony played out on the façade, while a few darting gondolas disturb the water and its reflections below. As Michael Levey observed, ‘Guardi’s love of movement, of pale tones and luminous skies, is based less on naturalism than on the heightened rococo of his century: its love of lightness, elegance and grace' (Painting in XVIII Century Venice, London, 1959, p. 103).
Although depicted by Guardi on several occasions, the canal is something of a backwater, rarely visited by travelers and, in turn, rarely the subject of works by vedutisti. One exception is Canaletto’s celebrated view of the Rio looking south (c.1723: Venice, Ca’ Rezzonico; fig. 1), an important early work which incorporates, opposite the church, a squero (gondola building yard) that is just visible on the left of the present composition, and which still survives to this day. Canaletto’s picture also shows the wooden footbridge from which, very probably, Guardi would have taken this view. The neighborhood had a particular significance for the artist; Guardi’s mother, who died in 1743, lived for forty years in a house on the Fondamenta Nuove, while the artist himself is recorded as living in the Fondamenta in the parish of SS. Apostoli. Furthermore, in 1757 the artist married Maria Pagan in the church of San Michele in Isola, which can be seen here in the distance.
The façade of the ospedale, which dominates this view of the Rio dei Mendicanti, incorporates the church of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti, commissioned from Vincenzo Scamozzi (1548-1616; fig. 2), arguably the most important architect in the Republic after the death of Andrea Palladio in 1580. The church's canal-facing façade, designed by Antonio Sardi and completed after his death by his son, Giuseppe, in 1673, was funded through a bequest from Jacopo Gallo, a wealthy Venetian merchant. The interior of the church contains altarpieces by Jacopo Tintoretto (Saint Ursula and the eleven thousand Virgins, c.1550-55) and Paolo Veronese (Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John, c.1580).