(Verona 1800–1879 Milan)
Piazza San Marco and the Campanile, Venice, seen from the Portico of the Palazzo Ducale,
signed,
oil on canvas, 89 x 133.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Milan;
where aquired by the present owner

We are grateful to Fernando Mazzocca for cataloguing the present painting.

The high quality, the compositional originality and the iconographic interest of the subject, make this painting one of the most unusual representations in nineteenth century Italian painting, of a most admired and frequently represented view, as well as the most significant work of Carlo Canella, whose masterpiece it certainly is. In relation to other works by this master, the present painting is surely his most complete: here he achieves an exceptional synthesis of his principal qualities, as a view painter, and as a genre painter attentive to the sensitive interpretation of the customs of contemporary life.

In works such as this he demonstrates his complete independence from the influence of his elder brother, Giuseppe Canella (Verona 1788–1847 Milan), with whom he shared the habit of placing a prominently positioned dog in lieu of a signature. In the present work it appears in the foreground, between the columns of the Ducal Palace, which mark out and frame the view of the Piazza. The Procuratie Vecchie and Nuove enclose the scene at the flanks while beyond the Campanile and the Palazzo Reale is seen in the distance. To the right, also framed by the portico, is the right flank of the Basilica. Pasted to the right hand column, the presence of a partially visible poster is notable: it is inscribed with the letters ‘LLA’ and therefore stands in as another hidden signature.

What is most striking about this view, beyond the narrative vivacity with which the people are represented, is the originality of the viewpoint. This composition recalls another masterpiece of the period which is also of similar size: the Veduta della Piazza del Duomo dal Coperto dei Figini executed by Angelo Inganni in 1842 on commissioned by the Viceroy Ranieri for the Palazzo Reale, Milan (see F. Mazzocca (ed.), Angelo Inganni 1807–1880. Un pittore bresciano nella Milano romantica, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1998, pp. 94, 203-204). As in the present painting, the artist also represented a piazza and the lively everyday life of the people from an observation point beneath a portico – here Milan’s Coperto dei Figini, which was destroyed during the urban renewal and enlargement works, undertaken after the unification of Italy.

The two paintings date to about the same time: in Canella’s painting the clothes point to a date around the later half of the 1830s or the beginning of the next decade. The work therefore belongs to a time when the artist’s reputation was established and his work was sought after. From this period onwards he almost always showed in the annual exhibitions held at the Accademia di Brera, Milan and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Verona (A. Scotti, in: A. M. Brizio/M. Rosci (eds.), Mostra dei Maestri di Brera 1776–1859, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1975, pp. 258-259; D. Modonesi, in: B. Brugnoli (ed.), Pittura a Verona del primo Ottocento e metà Novecento, Verona 1986, pp. 164-167; I. Marelli, in: E. Castelnuovo (ed.), La pittura in Italia. L’Ottocento, Milan 1990, vol. II, p. 731). His success was such that in his 1879 orbituary he was eulogised in the Verona newspaper L’Arena with the following terms: ‘Chi ricorda le splendide Esposizioni di Brera anteriori al 1848 sa a qual grado di valentia erano salite le opera dei Canella e in quanta considerazione fossero tenute e come si pagassero’ [‘Those that can recall the splendid Brera Exhibitions of before 1848 know to what levels of virtue the works of the Canella had risen, and in how much consideration they were held, and how much they were paid’]. The bond between the Canella brothers is corroborated by the portrait of 1837 wherein Carlo represented Giuseppe at work in his studio (Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan; F. Mazzocca, in: S. Marinelli/G. Mazzariol/F. Mazzocca (eds.), Il Veneto e l’Austria. Vita e cultura artistica nelle città venete 1814–1866, exhibition catalogue, Milan 1989, pp. 140-141).

In the present painting, along with the artist’s exceptional deployment of perspective to capture all of the differing corners of this celebrated square in a series of unusual renderings of its monuments, Canella reveals himself to be a superlative interpreter of the so-called ‘urban painting’ [‘pittura urbana’] tradition. The term was coined by the foremost critic of the Romantic era, Defedente Sacchi, in reference to Vincenzo Migliara, and during the 1830s and 1840s the finest achievements in this direction were by Inganni and the Canella brothers. In the present work, beyond the foreground in shade, the golden light casts a magic atmosphere over a Venetian day, the sky is lightly touched by cloud and the slow rhythms of everyday life unfold beneath the porticoes, in the piazza and around the monuments. The painter reveals exceptional skills of observation, both in the representation of the larger foreground figures, and in the smaller background figures called macchiette that, reducing in scale, mark out the ever-receding picture planes. The latter are picked out with the slightest touch of a brush, revealing the artist’s ability to define each detail, be it on a building or in the dress of an individual. Here, a lively selection of Venetian costumes and customs emerges: the two youths in the centre foreground with baskets of fish; the woman bearing copper water buckets, balanced in the typical manner over her shoulder, the figure in oriental dress at the foot of the tall pole from which a broad flag is hung, as well as the elegant, fashionably dressed figures intent on their stroll. Here an endless array of beautiful details are combined to create the resolved complexity of this fine narrative scene. A comparably successfully descriptive painting was only to follow with the achievement of one of the episodes of the Cinque Giornate di Milano now preserved alongside other works by Canella in the Galleria d’Italia (see F. Mazzocca (ed.), Porta Tosa in Milano il 22 marzo 1848; Da Canova a Boccioni. Le collezioni della Fondazione Carplo e di Intesa Sanpaolo, Milan 2011, pp. 58, 191-192).