Money, and lots of it – and then you’re as important as only monarchs and ministers were in bygone days. There’s a lot of ‘new’ money around today, and those who have it want to show it off. All you have to do is ask the architects of luxurious villas, or the designer of unimaginably expensive cars and yachts. In an age like ours, flaunting its nouveaux riches, there’s a very strong tendency to believe that art, too, depends entirely on money. The more people with money, the more patrons and the more customers for expensive articles like works of art. And the greater the competition, the higher the standards. It’s something quite new in Art History to see how it’s simply taken for granted that wealth will gild itself with art. Where there is great art, there must be great prosperity. Those who can give expensive commissions have become almost as important as the artists themselves. This is something both Marxists and capitalists agree upon. 

But it’s not so simple. The great Dutch historian, Johan Huizinga (1872-1945) repeatedly pointed out that the most beautiful art was also made in cultures that were toppling into the grave. After all, the most magnificent blossoms bloom on dunghills. Politically impoverished, economically collapsed, bereft of power, declining on all sides – and despite all this, or perhaps precisely at such a moment, just look how vibrantly and spectacularly artists will disguise the fact that all is coming to a close. This is the fascination of 18th-century Venetian art. During the 17th century, when Venice still played an active part on the European stage,  there was scarcely any art worth mentioning being produced in the city of Saint Mark. The most important painters, Johann Liss and Carl Loth, were imported from the north. Then at the beginning of the 18th century, suddenly Sebastiano Ricci appears and breathes new life into the history-painting genre of the 16th-century artist Paolo Veronese. There follow Giovanni Antonio Pelligrini and Giambattista Piazzetta and a whole quiverfull of talented artists producing altarpieces or biblical and mythological scenes. The greatest of these is Giambattista Tiepolo, who could turn a palace into a heavenly dwelling with his wondrous frescoes, and whose church altarpieces inspired divine visions. As well as painters of history pieces there were painters of cityscapes, such as Antonio Canaletto and Francesco Guardi. In the background, churches and palaces resounded with newly-composed music by sons of Venice – such as Tommaso Albinoni, Gabriele Marcello and Antonio Vivaldi. Venice revived – thanks to its painters and musicians, and the arts flourished profusely s.

We can suggest various reasons why at that particular moment the climate in the watery city was so favourable for a cultural revival. Two are of special importance for the visual arts. First, Venice was the earliest European city to externalize itself as a tourist centre. For this, we may thank the development of pictures representing the Venetian cityscape. In the 18th century it was impossible for a young man of rank to make the Grand Tour unless, on his return home, he could recount his adventures in St Mark’s Square.

Visiting Venice was a must. It was also requisite to bear back, tucked among your treasures, a painting or print showing a view of the remarkable city on the lagoon, made by one of the so-called vedute artists such as Canaletto.

The history of the Venetian cityscape (or vedute)  is an excellent example of the phenomenon that cultural sociologists like to term gesunkenes Kulturgut . The earliest example is by Luca Carlevarijs . . He would paint particular occasions, such as the arrival and reception of an important ambassador or a royal visitor. What could be more attractive than when Carlevarijs immortalized the colourful event for the eminent visitor, setting it against a spectacular Venetian backdrop. Carlevarijs only painted for an elite, and each work was a one-off. In the main, his paintings are souvenirs for elegant gentlemen, made as memory-joggers and also to impress friends with their stories.

Antonio Canaletto was discovered in 1725 by two Englishmen in Venice, one being the gentleman-art dealer Owen McSwiney, the other a merchant, Joseph Smith. The art dealer invited him to come to England where he would find plenty of employment painting the interiors of country houses with imaginary landscapes. This was being done by artists all over Europe – they were engaged in producing ultra-expensive wallpaper. But Smith had a different idea. He asked Canaletto to paint views of Venice. During the 1730s the painter had a resounding success with these cityscapes. Most of the buyers were wealthy tourists. Canaletto was in such demand that a large studio was created where cityscapes, large and small, were produced by the dozen. After all, a city that externalizes itself and becomes dependent on the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of tourists needs to have a lot of picture postcards made. That was Canaletto’s job.

Within no time at all, Canaletto’s studio became part of the tourist industry – thanks to Joseph Smith. It’s almost as if Smith had taken to heart some words from a novel by the Dutch  writer Simon Vestdijk (1898-1971) [from De leeuw en zijn huid (The lion and his skin)]:
‘Drive the impoverished Venetians and the wealthy English together and then stand in between.’ Smith published a book of prints of Canaletto’s cityscapes and this undoubtedly boosted sales. If you couldn’t afford a painting, you could always buy a print showing one of his city views s. 00, . In around 1740 wars were being fought in various places throughout Europe, which impeded travel. The Venetian tourist industry suffered and Canaletto’s paintings lost their allure; the studio grew shabby and in 1766 the artist set off for England where he would paint interiors on his clients’ country estates.

The most gifted artist working with Canaletto was his nephew, Bernardo Bellotto. Like his uncle, he left Venice to seek his fortune elsewhere. Between 1744 and 1745 he stayed in Turin where he painted on commission for Charles Emmanuel III, king of Sardinia and duke of  Savoy. From 1747 to 1758 he worked in Dresden for August III, king of Poland and Elector of Saxony. Magnificent cityscapes arose beneath his brush. Meticulously detailed but without pedantic particulars. His pictures emanate a wondrous sense of rest, partly because all he painted has a kind of unity – which it gains from his unique use of light .. His love of travel was greatly curbed by the war situation in Europe; thus in 1758 he left Dresden. When he returned towards the end of that particular war, the city was in ruins. In an impressive painting done in 1765 he has recorded those ruins. Unfortunately, there were no patrons left in Dresden; so in 1758 he set off for Vienna where he worked for the empress Maria Theresa, and then from 1767 until his death in 1780,  for King August Poniatovski Stanislav II in Warsaw.

When the war situation stymied the sale of pictures to foreign buyers, Bernardo’s uncle – before leaving for England – created a number of fascinating fantasies representing the lagoon and elements of the city; these paintings were termed ‘capriccios’. Two of these can be seen today in the Hermitage s.00, . We assume that these painted improvisations were intended for the Venetians themselves, who were more interested in the playful ingenuity of their city painter than in his realistic representation. The capriccio, with all its light-hearted elements, belongs to a city that relishes concealment, that survives on the gloss and glamour of the outward. No one could depict more subtly his city’s caprices than Francesco Guardi. His Venice dissolves into a delicate grey, lightened here and there with bright stabs of colour.

Guardi was the painter for the Venetians themselves. This also explains why he was only discovered outside Venice to be a great painter when, about a century and a half later, Impressionism introduced a new awareness of atmospheric painting. For Guardi, everything must have been light-hearted, nothing heavy or serious. He was anything but a toiling artist. It’s as if all he did was effortless. Take, for instance, a sketch he made for an altarpiece, actually no more than a brilliant suggestion. The scene emerges through strong movements of the pencil. What Guardi demonstrates here is termed sprezzatura: one might call it the technique of free brushstroke, effortless virtuosity, associated for many with a particular lifestyle.