(Palmanova 1772–1844 Milan)
Campo Santi Giovanni and Paolo during the feast of the Assumption, Venice,
oil on canvas, 62.5 x 80.5 cm, framed

This painting represents Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo, the most important public space in Venice after the Piazza San Marco. This campo or square was accessed by the bridge seen in the left foreground, or from an embarkation such as the gondola seen here docking at the stairs on the canal side. The large basilica – which is the greatest example of sacred gothic architecture in Venice alongside the church of the Frari – was the site of the doge’s funerals and the burial ground of the city’s most celebrated citizens. Next to the church’s south façade can be seen the magnificent asymmetrical façade of the Scuola Grande di San Marco, one of the most original expressions of the Venetian renaissance, completed in 1495 by Mauro Codussi and Antonio Rizzo, and enriched by the splendid sculpture of the Lombardo brothers. At the centre of the square, on the raised pedestal is the bronze equestrian monument to the general – or condottiero – Bartolomeo Colleoni, executed by Andrea del Verrocchio.

In creating the present painting Giuseppe Bernardino Bison referred to a work by Canaletto, today preserved in the British Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (inv. no. RCIN 400715) and known to him though its engraving by Antonio Visentini of 1742. The series of thirty-eight etched and engraved plates by Visentini reproduced the most significant works of Canaletto painted between the final years of the 1720s and the first of the 1740s, all commissioned by the British consul in Venice, Joseph Smith. The great collector also owned the Veduta del Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo which appeared in the third series of the 1742 edition of the Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus Celebriores containing views, or prospettive, that rather than representing the Grand Canal and its historic buildings, are dedicated to the churches and squares that give their names to their settings.

During the course of his career Giuseppe Bernardino Bison became a skilled master in a variety of painting techniques, following in the footsteps of Giambattista Tiepolo. He was a fresco painter and decorator of talent as well as a genre painter, landscape painter and a painter of urban views. His works are characterised by their swift style of execution and their light palette, the compositions of his views most often find their principal reference point in Canaletto, yet being active at the close of the eighteenth century and into the new century, Bison re-elaborated the master’s compositions in an entirely personal manner, steeped in the new romantic sensibility of the nineteenth century.