snapshot from Venezia #3 [jatp]

tre archi [jatp]

Canaletto in Paris [musée Maillol]

By a strange coincidence, I happened to visit two art exhibits in Paris over eight days: following Hopper’s exhibition last week, I had tickets today for the Canaletto a Venezia exhibit. I took a few snapshots of Antonio Canaletto’s paintings that reminded me of photographs I had taken during my last visit to Venezia, not that those snapshots pay any proper tribute to the art of the painter, with the intricate precision of the buildings (obtained thanks to a camera obscura, I was quite tempted to buy the squetches book reproduction!), the tricks in perspective to cram more buildings into the painting than eye can see, and the highly personal play on light. Here are a few juxtapositions, to show (a) that Canaletto’s main patronage was made of (English) tourists and (b) that most features remain from the 18th Century era of Canaletto.