dp canaletto anglais - copie

22 Pages·2012·0.96 MB·French

by  Céline Echinard

PRESS RELEASE
sous le haut patronage de la Ville de Venise
CANALETTO À VENISE
C’EST AU MUSÉE MAILLOL
19 SEPTEMBRE 2012 > 10 FÉVRIER 2013
billets coupe–file www.museemaillol.com
Antonio Canal dit Canaletto – La Basilique de la Salute et la Douane vues du Palais Cornaro (détail) – 1725-1730 – Huile sur toile - 46,5 x 91 cm Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Photo © Volker – H. Schneider
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C
ONTENTS
1- PRESS RELEASE 3
2- COMMISSION AND SCIENTIFIC COMITTEE 5
3- EXTRACTS FROM THE CATALOGUE 6
4- NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF WORKS 13
5- VISUAL DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE FOR THE MEDIA 19
6- PRACTICAL INFORMATION 22
PRESS CONTACTS MUSÉE MAILLOL
AGENCE OBSERVATOIRE 59-61 rue de Grenelle
68 rue Pernety 75007 Paris
75014 Paris Claude Unger
Céline Echinard 06 14 71 27 02
01 43 54 87 71 [email protected]
[email protected] Elisabeth Apprédérisse
www.observatoire.fr 01 42 22 57 25
[email protected] 2
1- PRESS RELEASE
Under the patronage of The City of Venice
M M
USÉE AILLOL
C V
ANALETTO IN ENICE
19 September 2012 -10 February 2013
The Musée Maillol pays homage to Venice with the first exhibition devoted exclusively to Canaletto’s
Venetian works. The exhibition will be presented in partnership with the Foundation of Venice Civic
Museums which is preparing to put on a Francesco Guardi retrospective at the Correr Museum in
Venice to mark the 300th anniversary of that Venetian painter’s birth.
Canaletto in Venice will be an exclusive occasion for visitors to enjoy the master’s vision of his city,
brought to life through his paintbrush. Along the canals we discover places, islands, squares and
monuments, views of a city that still retains its 18th-century charm. The Venetian painter certainly
didn’t invent the veduta, or detailed cityscape, a genre that has ancient origins, but he helped to
develop it by giving his paintings a modernity that allowed him to overtake his masters.
Canaletto (1697-1768) is the most famous of the Venetian vedutisti of the 18th century. Over the
centuries Antonio Canal has never fallen from favour; his works have always been eagerly sought after
by collectors. They seem to have an endless charm, unaffected by trends. Canaletto has the crystal
clarity of a man who was faithful to the spirit of the Enlightenment, with a very personal vision of reality.
His painting manages to capture the very essence of the light; it conveys a unique and sensual
shimmering.
The exhibition will bring together more than 50 carefully selected works, from the greatest museums
and some historic private collections. On display too will be his drawings and also the famous
sketchbook from about 1731, a rare loan by the Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe Gallerie the Cabinet
of Prints and Drawings of the Accademia Gallery in Venice, which will be displayed open but which
can be fully explored on computers.
Visitors will also be able to see a copy, made by Venetian master craftsmen, of the optical chamber
used by Canaletto to make his drawings, thanks to a partnership with the superintendence of the
Polo Museale of the City of Venice and the research of Dario Maran. It is taken from Canaletto’s
original device, which was often used on a boat, made with carefully placed lenses that offered highly
precise images that were unique at that time. Visitors will be able to see for themselves just how
effective it was.
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In recent times Canaletto has had a central role in a series of ground-breaking exhibitions about the
vedutisti, including the one in Rome curated by the much-missed Alessandro Bettagno with Bozena
Anna Kowalczyk; The Splendours of Venice in Treviso in 2009, by Giuseppe Pavanello and Alberto
Craievich; and more recently the outstanding shows in London and Washington, curated by Charles
Beddington.
The exhibition at the Musée Maillol aims to be the last in this decade-long cycle by allowing Canaletto
alone to lead the spectator around his city through his view paintings. The works on display will show
how the artist developed his style. The juxtapositioning of his paintings of the same view will show
how his early style, heavily influenced by the artist Marco Ricci and also by his training as a theatrical
scenery painter, gradually evolved into interpretations of reality. These were imbued with an
atmosphere that was both subtle and sublime, paving the way for painting that was to conquer
Europe.
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2- COMMISSION AND SCIENTIFIC COMITTEE
•COMMISSION
ANNALISA SCARPA
An art historian who specialises in Venetian painting of the 18th century and Venetian view painting.
After teaching at the University of Ca’ Foscari in Venice, alongside authorities on Venetian art such as
Pietro Zampetti, Alessandro Brettagno and especially Terisio Pignatti, she spent many years studying
Canaletto’s graphic art. With Ludovico Mucchi she published Nella Profondità dei Dipinti: La
Radiografia nell’indagine Pittorica (The Profundity of Painting: Radiography in Art Research), analysing
more than 200 Venetian view paintings using radiography.
She is the author of important works on 18th-century Venetian art, Marco Ricci, Sebastiano Ricci and
Jacopo Amigoni. She has curated a number of major recent exhibitions: Settecento Veneciano at the
Academia of San Fernando in Madrid and at thr Museo ode Bellas Artes in Seville, as well as From
Canaletto to Tiepolo at the Palazzo Reale in Milan. She is the curator of the Fondazione A. F. Terruzzi
in Milan.
LA FONDAZIONE TERRUZZI
La Fondation possède environ mille oeuvres de peinture italienne du XVIIIe siècle, essentiellement
vénitienne : Canaletto, Bellotto, Sebastiano Ricci, Magnasco, Amigoni, Pellegrini, Antonio et
Gaspare Diziani, Piazzetta, Tiepolo, Guardi, Longhi, ainsi que des maîtres plus anciens tels que
Paolo Veneziano, Cariani, Paris Bordone, Carpioni, Heintz, Tintoret, Luca Giordano, Strozzi. Elle
possède également des œuvres du XIXe siècle, dont une importante sélection d’Ippolito Caffi.
Grâce au mécénat de Guido Angelo Terruzzi, la Villa Regina Margherita de Bordighera, récemment
rénovée, accueille une partie de la collection et des expositions temporaires.
•SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
IRINA ARTEMIEVA, Curator of Venetian painting, the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
CHARLES BEDDINGTON, Art historian who was curator of two of the most recent and important
exhibitions dedicated to Canaletto: Canaletto in England: a Venetian Artist Abroad 1746-1755 at Yale
Centre for British Art, New Haven, 2006, and the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2007; as well as
Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals at the National Gallery in London, 2010 and the National Gallery of
Art in Washington DC in 2011.
Alberto CRAIEVICH, Curator, Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice, and Professore
Emerito of the University of Ca’ Foscari
ALASTAIR LAING, Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, the National Trust, London
FILIPPO PEDROCCO, Director, Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca’ Rezzonico, Venice
LIONELLO PUPPI, President of the Centro Studi Tiziano e Cadore, Pieve di Cadore
ALAIN TAPIÉ, Chief Curator of Cultural Heritage
•PROJET DIRECTOR
PATRIZIA NITTI, Artistic Director of the Musée Maillol
•SCÉNOGRAPHY
HUBERT LE GALL
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3- EXTRACTS FROM THE CATALOGUE
• THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK
by Annalisa Perissa Torrini, director of the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings of the Accademia Gallery,
Venice
The extraordinary sketchbook of Canaletto’s drawings, unique in the history of 18th-century Venetian
art, has been in the keeping of the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings of the Accademia Gallery in Venice
since 1949. It was a donation by Don Guido Gagnola, from the village of Gazzada Schianno in the
Varese region of Lombardy, who said he had received it from his father. His father had owned it since
1895 but didn’t know where it had come from1.
This precious volume, already bound at the time, was authenticated in August 1840 by Giuseppe
Borsato, who unfortunately was to put his heavy stamp on every page.
Not long after the sketchbook entered the Accademia collections, Vittorio Moschini2 published two
articles about it, and a facsimile edition was produced by Terisio Pignatti in 1958, then by Giovanna
Nepi Scirè in 19973. It has only been on public display in London in 1990, and in Venice in 1982, 1995
and 1999. The critical value of this jewel of the art of drawing – important well beyond its 18th-century
context – is far greater than its artistic merit. Indeed it is hardly mentioned in the numerous
monographs and catalogues dedicated to the work of Canaletto, in which the sketches it contains are
treated as just part of the body of his some 500 drawings.
The sketches in this book are very precise and made with great care. They are preparatory drawings
representing the immediacy of a view, which will then be transformed in the painter’s mind when he
makes the canvases that are supposed to reproduce reality. In this respect they show the process of
Canaletto’s thinking, from the first idea to its development on paper, then on to the finished canvas.
The drawings are annotated with information and observations that he will use when he turns the
sketch into a painting. They reveal the way he in which he develops his works, which share a
distinctive perspective based on a gradual reduction in the planes, with shortened silhouettes on the
horizon. Based on topographical precision, Canaletto’s creative intelligence manages to combine all
the different elements very convincingly. His notes include the names of palaces and shops,
indications of a ferry or a gondola repair workshop, or he gives the exact number of windows or

columns. He doesn’t forget to note down the colours – brown, white, yellow, black, off-white, red,
ochre or yellow ochre – indicating whether their tones are light or dark. He also indicates sizes:
“wider”, “a bit longer”, “narrower”, “correct”. Materials, too, are mentioned – lead, stone, brick, wood
– and sites and even signs. When a panorama can’t be kept to one page, he divides it into sections
that are developed on different pages, which he calls “strips”: “first strip on left”, or “first strip on
1Cf. G. Nepi Scirè, Accademia Galleries. History of the Drawings collections Milan, 1982, p. 17-18, 24, note 186. Letters
from 28 February and 15 May 1949 are conserved in the Archive of the Superintendence, Accademia Galleries, 2, Dons et
legs 118/33, Book of the sketches of Canaletto donated by Don Guido Gagnola di Gaza from Schianto (Varese).
2 A book of Canaletto sketches donated to the Accademia Galleries in Venice, in “Bollettino d’Arte”, 1949, p. 279, and the
book of Canaletto sketches to the Venetian Galleries, in “Arte Veneta”, 1950, p. 57-75.
3 T. Pignatti, The Notebook of Canaletto Sketches at the Venice Galleries, 1958; G. Nepi Scirè, Canaletto’s Notebook,
Venice, 1997; Canaletto. The Venetian Notebook, edited by A. Perissa Torrini, Venice, 2012.
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right”4. And if a bell tower is too big to be kept within the dimensions of the page, and therefore within
the frame of the optical chamber on which the page was placed5, he cuts off a bit of the lower part,
as can be seen on the pages showing Santa Maria Formosa, the dome of the church of St Simeon
Piccolo and the façade of the Basilica of Saints John and Paul6.
As the book is a collection of seven sections, and not a unified whole, it’s not possible to establish
through historical or artistic research the date each painting was made7. So we tend to examine each
section separately. Thus the bell tower of San Giorgio Maggiore, outlined in broad strokes, still has a
spire on page 2v, whereas in 1728 it is shown in a bulb shape, only found in the first section, while the
smaller seventh section can be considered separately8.
(...)
Even if drawing is a direct approach to reality, that doesn’t mean that things can’t be made bigger or
smaller, highlighted or underplayed by the sort of “poetic licence” described by the painter Anton
Maria
Zanetti. This served to enhance the true novelty of Canaletto’s painting, which ensured “that the eye is
deceived and believes it is seeing the real thing and not the painted version”, as Guarienti wrote in
1753. “He always goes to the site and takes everything down on the spot,” the Verona painter
Alessandro Marchesini said of him in a letter in 1725-26. And Zanetti claimed that “in his paintings he
joins pictorial licence to nature with such economy that his works appear to be real.” As Corboz
points out, he had understood how distortions of reality could seem plausible, like the scenery in a
theatre. That’s exactly what Canaletto is doing in the pages of his sketchbook, presenting scenes in
the style of theatrical decoration, as he learnt in Rome from the scene-painter Andrea Pozzo. And, as
recent studies of his modus operandi9 have suggested, he did this as soon as he started using the
optical chamber. In his study, Dario Maran manages to establish its exact position, based on the
architectural perspectives in the sketchbook, which he analyses (p 21v-25r), as well as suggestions
for other sections. Maran shows how, by turning the mirror inside the chamber, buildings can be seen
4 In the 8-page series, from p. 10v to p. 14; for example, Canaletto notes “banda drita” and “banda sinistra”, “l’isteso”,
“altretanto”, “taca a mezzo”, meaning link to the centre, or “taca il passatà”, meaning link to the preceding, and “parti”,
meaning bring them together.
5 Or fastened, as in section VII, where the perforations can still be seen (Cf. B. Biciocchi, An enigmatic work tool, in
Canaletto, The Venetian Notebook, cit. 2012, p. 54-69), probably made to fix the sheet while the tracing was being carried
out.
6 Page 17, the detail of La Specola – which couldn’t be shown on the preceding page because of lack of space as it was
too low for the optical chamber – is suspended in the sky, an expediency the artist resorts to when the pages of the
sketchbook are too small, especially for the bell towers and for La Specola.
7 The entire sketchbook is not unified but, according to critics, covers some ten years, from 1734 to 1744, as put forward
by Moschini and Pallucchini, while Corboz suggests 1731 to 1746, and Bettagno between the end of 1720 and the
beginning of 1730. Giobanna Nepi Scirè, on the other hand, suggests that it was made between the end of the 1720s and
the middle of the following decade, while Constable and Links believe that most of the sketches should be placed around
1730, apart from page 2v, which they think dates from 1726 to 1727, and the rest a little later. Finally Ragghianti believes the
whole sketchbook was made before 1730 and Pignatti dates it between 1728 and 1730.
8 Or with the rest, as it shows no stylistic or thematic features that could support any other date than 1731.
9 In Canaletto. The Venetian Notebook, cit. 2012, particularly Dario Maran, p. 40-53.
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simultaneously, and that the entire scene unfurls on a tilt like a theatrical set “for a more truthful
appearance of reality”. He also shows that the instrument must have been used on a boat for all the
views of the Grand Canal, St Mark’s basin and the canals. In addition, various studies have brought
further insights. One fundamental point is that, by following almost to the letter the rules of 18th-
century theatrical scenography, the field of vision of these cityscapes in always contained inside a
right angle, including the longest section in the sketchbook, showing St Mark’s basin.
Thus, starting from reality, traced with the help of optical instruments with “scientific” precision that
only he knew how to make best use of, Canaletto managed to paint views of a real city. That’s what
was demanded by his foreign clients, who loved Venice, just as the viewer wants to see it and
remember it today, almost as a cinematic sequence in a film made in the 18th century.
•VIEWS OF VENICE AND ENGLISH PATRONS
by FRANCIS RUSSEL, Deputy Chairman, Old Master and Early British painting, Christie’s
There are numerous views of Venice in renaissance devotional pictures, but it was only in the early
18th Century that Venetian topography became a significant preoccupation for major artists, of whom
the first was the peripatetic Gaspare Vanvitelli, few of whose Venetian views were supplied to English
patrons. The earliest significant native master of the genre was Luca Carlevarijs. The 4th Earl of
Manchester, who was ambassador in Venice in 1707-8—at a time when Marlborough’s victories in
Flanders greatly increased the significance of such an embassy—commissioned the artist to record
his official entry (fig. ). Manchester persuaded Marco Ricci and Pellegrini to return with him to England,
and just as they, and Ricci’s brother Sebastiano, worked for other noblemen in his circle when in
England, so Carlevarijs was to receive commissions from other British patrons, including Lord
Bateman.
In retrospect it is not difficult to see why the young Canaletto was established by the late 1720s as the
vedutista of choice for the English. His artistic abilities were of course self-evident. He was helped by
the illness and subsequent death of Carlevarijs, by McSwinny and, above all, by the leading English
merchant at Venice, Joseph Smith, who acted as banker for many of those who made the Grand
Tour. Both men were known to the 2nd Duke of Richmond, himself a grandson of King Charles II, but
a committed Whig: he was an early patron of the artist and in 1746 was to commission two of his
finest London views; and it was he who, in 1744, secured Smith’s appointment as Consul in Venice.
The list of Canaletto’s major patrons in the 1730s reads like a roll call of the Whig establishment: the
Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole owned a masterpiece, while the closely related dukes of Bedford
and Marlborough commissioned extensive sets of canvasses, and numerous others shopped less
immodestly. Smith orchestrated many of their purchases, but he could only do so because there was
a genuine taste for Venetian views, even from individuals—like indeed Sir Robert Walpole—who had
not made the Grand Tour.
Canaletto was a meticulous and methodical artist. And of course he could not contend with demand.
In recent decades, due to the work of Charles Beddington, Bozena Anna Kowalcyk and others, we
have come to understand much more about the versions of his compositions, often larger than the
prototypes and invariably more loosely and therefore quickly executed, which were supplied by
Canaletto’s teenage nephew, Bernardo Bellotto. Some at least of these seem to have been marketed,
apparently without compunction, as by Canaletto himself. But uncle and nephew had no monopoly.
Pictures by their gifted contemporary, Michele Marieschi, were supplied in considerable number, most
notably to the 4th Earl of Carlisle, who was assisted in Venice by the antiquary, Antonio Maria Zanetti:
the incomparable View of the Bacino (now at Boston, fig. ) and a fine group of early Bellottos was
complemented at Castle Howard by a set of smaller views by Marieschi.
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•CANALETTO, BEYOND IMITATION, A QUEST FOR ILLUSION
By Alain Tapié, Chief Curator of Heritage
The aesthetic agenda of the greatest of the vedutisti, Antonio Canal, seems to have had many
elements: to expand space; to anticipate the desire for panoramas that was to preoccupy artists
involved in colonial conquests throughout the first half of the 19th century; to display monuments so
as to be able to see the smallest details; to make the dream of an intimate monumentality available to
everyone through these views. It was also to offer to increasing numbers of people the privilege of
embracing Venice by purchasing an expensive “veduta”, carefully composed by the artist so as to
create a double image, in which the expensive finite, its economic value, is combined with the
heavenly infinite, its poetical perspective. It was also about establishing different subjects, without
worrying about the makeshift craft of drawing them with an optical chamber, even if they looked
similar when seen in the series of paintings in which they featured. It was also about treating the air
that circulates between the great buildings so as to magnify them, much as the Impressionists were to
do with crude industrial landscapes; ensuring that every urban fragment contributes to “the glory of
the city”. In all this, Canaletto, like the Impressionists, favoured the visual projection of a perception
that was orderly but without any ranking.
This projection uses a different approach to reproducing scenes from the one made so familiar to us
through our exposure to Impressionism, considered the model of modernity. Think of Monet and
Boudin, who both painted in Venice, and who brought their subjects to life through texture, and a
naturalistic, organic approach. Very differently, but equally audaciously, Canaletto gives his floating
figures a bodiless physical independence as though identifying social entities who punctuate the
space in infinite numbers, and who proliferate, calm and static, in the field of vision opened up by the
scale and expanse. This complex layout opens up a dream world and helps to create the sort of
illusions found in photography and cinema. Canaletto took the idea of composition using optics from
Luca Carlevarijs, who in turn had inherited the Flemish meticulousness found in the landscapes of
Pieter Brueghel and his contemporaries. Through this intricate weaving, details attain the significant
role of signposting the world. Using this model, Canaletto explores a fundamental principle: painting
not what is seen but what is – bricks, stones, paving stones, clefts, flaws, cracks – and at the same
time painting what is not, but could be seen.
(...)
It is fair to say that Canaletto sometimes used the optical chamber when he needed to save time. So
how can we assess the structural autonomy of paintings that, especially in the later works, attained
such a lightness of touch that it seems skim the surface rather than digging in? In the urban
landscapes there was a practical approach that gave pride of place to invention. When Canaletto set
up a veduta, it was with the aim of researching it in depth. It seems paradoxical for a subject
dominated by different planes: lagoon, facades, ground and sky. People, boats and gondolas are set
out so as to contribute to the same feeling of distance. The optical effect thus created distributes the
figures in a way that is both reasoned and random. The different planes, like the signs, buildings and
human figures, are close and distant at the same time. A systematic adjustment of the bright light
gives each of these figures the micro-proportions that enable us to determine social bearing without
having to come up against anyone’s personality. Canaletto relied on graphic dynamics for his human
figures, adjusting their appearances, bordering on the superficial and the outline. The ratio is reversed
for the skies, the lagoon and the quaysides, which come to life through graphic resonance and bring
out a monumental density. The rest is achieved by the broken tones and daylight colours of the
Mannerist tradition, giving a feeling of unity, and bringing continuity to the different planes. The light
and shade simply accompanies the reliefs, which gives the views a clarity without contrast, making all
parts of each composition equally accessible to the eye.
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The sculptural sensibility of Canaletto’s images is not changed by the their optical structuring. Each
view has an element of pure painting that doesn’t diminish the use of the camera obscura. It allows
him to transfer distant or narrow spaces to paper, combining many points of view. The poetic tones
are not arranged symmetrically. The speed at which the painter works corresponds to his aim to
reproduce rather than represent. Thus the painter corrects the overall perspective, made up of partial
views, so as to achieve a consistent view, by rebalancing the vanishing points that rise or fall
excessively. He works on the stereotype of a first plane that is generally dark, to act as a foil, a second
plane that presents squares, gardens and waterways, a third plane containing edifices and facades,
and a higher fourth plane where we at last reach the sky. The achievement of the vedutiste consists in
measuring the difficulty of the relationship between the details and the overall structure. There are
three types of details and they are a source of invention, things that the artist puts in because he
knows them, things that we shouldn’t see. They cause a tension within the image towards hyper-
reality, metaphorical details: a fountain, a ruin, a column, a bit of vegetation; they act like a florid and
capricious commentary on the objective base on which the space is built. There are the details of
human life: those “figurines” that stand their ground in distant poses, the theatre of the everyday.
Canaletto, that great painter of the veduta, shows his complete loyalty to the optical perception of
reality by giving an intense and suspensive character to his compositions. The image acquires all the
necessary simplicity.
In a romanticized view of art history, Alain Buisine describes the daily work of Canaletto: “It’s quite
right to call it hand-made; it’s heavy, it soon causes ankylosis in the arm. You have to know how to
use it, to be able to choose the right lens, to adjust the lenses so that the image is almost up straight,
otherwise it will be blurred and inverted, and to correct the aberrations and distortions of perspective
that it can cause. Finally, it’s essential to make this devilish optical machine stable and fully horizontal
so that the rough tiling of the Venetian campi is never flat. It’s not at all as easy as people think, who
naively assume that you just have to make a copy, that the drawing is finished in a trice and perfect.
That would be too good to be true, and anyway it would mean that there would be no more need for
professional draughtsmen. It’s very practical for expanding the space and doing a first sketch.
Anyway all his vedutisti colleagues use it for this, too. It allows him to draw a simple, rapid scaraboto
sketch, a large overall view that will give him his very first panoramic outline. … The important part
comes later, when he divides this rough sketch into different sections, which he reworks in minute
detail by hand and on the spot.”
That is the working method that allows Canaletto to meet his documentary obligations, to grasp exact
architectural details and ceremonial rituals, since he is free of the succession of scenes and situations
in the time sequence of events. Very different from the imitative process that tries to capture mobility,
Canaletto creates poses in every scene, as though time is standing still.
By using an optical chamber Canaletto brings out the detail, captured for its own sake, yet used again
in an overall unity, by a phenomenon of immersion due to the transformation through colour. All the
chance signs and picturesque details thus become superfluous. It is the modernity of Canaletto that
highlights the break with mere copying thanks to the way he captures illusion by optical means. The
imagination that is liberated both by the structure and the layout of the details does not deprive the
viewer of his desire for reality. In his Guide for Lovers of the Louvre Museum, Théophile Gautier offers
this invitation: “If you haven’t been to Venice, stop in front of Canaletto’s painting showing the
Madonna della Salute at the entrance to the Grand Canal and you will have made the journey. You
will learn no more from the reality, the entire illusion is complete.” Gautier’s opinion goes to the heart of
the matter, removing the need to resort to reference, for the pictorial process follows a different route.
The Impressionist painters did much the same thing.
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