Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal) (1697-1768) was an Italian painter celebrated for his views of Venice, where he was born. He learned theatrical scene-painting from his father, Bernardo Canal. Together, they prepared opera sets for the composer Alessandro Scarlatti in Rome. Canaletto returned to Venice about 1720. For the next 20 years, he was among the most influential and sought-after landscape artists.
Canaletto’s work in oils shows a rare appreciation of light and shade. Canaletto explored the tones of color on land, reflected in water, and in shadows. He often worked directly onto canvas. Canaletto worked with a camera obscura, which uses a lens to project an image of a scene onto a flat surface, providing an outline for the artist’s drawing.
After 1742, Canaletto traveled to Rome and then to London, where he produced notable studies of the River Thames. But many of his wealthy patrons considered these below his best. He returned to Venice in 1756.
