The View Painter & the Eighteenth Century. 9

Venetian Arcadias and Pastoral Realism

It is hardly surprising that landscape was a neglected genre in 18th century Venice. Both patrons in the city or foreign visitors either craved the weightless fantasies of Tiepolo, or the architectural views of Canaletto, or the marine impressionism of Guardi. However, even such an important patron of Canaletto like Consul Smith began to seek out landscape artists like Francesco Zuccarelli who became famous for landscapes filled with English architecture, much admired by the likes of Lord Burlington. After Zuccarelli left Venice for England in 1752, Smith employed Guiseppe Zais whose pastoral landscapes are not so distant from realistic genre because they include fashionable Venetians who could have strayed from a Longhi picture watched by members of the rural peasantry. But of course it was Domenico who had most successfully combined high born elegance with the actual circumstances of Venetian life. In the frescoes at the Villa Valmarana, Vincenza, Domenico produced a wonderfully light evocative series of designs that celebrate rural life (above); and in another fresco in the Ca’ Rezzonico he painted a poignant scene of Punchinello leaving his comrades in a landscape.