Bernardo Bellotto
Precise, somber European cityscapes
Bernardo Bellotto, was an Italian urban landscape painter or vedutista, and printmaker in etching famous for his vedute of European cities (Dresden, Vienna, Turin, and Warsaw). He was the student and nephew of the famous Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto and sometimes used the latter’s illustrious name, signing himself as Bernardo Canaletto. In Germany and Poland, Bellotto called himself by his uncle’s name, Canaletto. This caused some confusion, however Bellotto’s work is more sombre in color than Canatello’s and his depiction of clouds and shadows brings him closer to Dutch painting. Bellotto’s style was characterized by elaborate representation of architectural and natural vistas, and by the specific quality of each place’s lighting. It is plausible that Bellotto, and other Venetian masters of vedute, may have used the camera obscura in order to achieve superior precision of urban views.
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Artworks by this artist
- Dresden from the Right Bank of the Elbe, below the Augustus Bridge c.1750
- View of the Grand Canal; Santa Maria della Salute and the Dogana from Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo about 1743
- View of Pirna in Saxony
- Miodowa Street in Warsaw 1777
- Church of the Holy Cross in Warsaw 1778
- View of Verona with the Ponte delle Navi 1745-1747
- Rome, a view of the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine
- View of Dresden 1765
- Dresden from the Right Bank of the Elbe, above the Augustus Bridge c.1750
- Venice, the Grand Canal with the Rialto Bridge seen from the South
- The Lock at Dolo ca. 1745
- Colonel Königsfels teaching Prince Józef Poniatowski how to ride 1773
- The Marketplace at Pirna 1760s
- Pirna; The Obertor from the South mid-1750s
- View of Grand Canal with the Palazzi Foscari and Moro Lin
- Dresden seen from the Right Bank of the Elbe, beneath the Augusts Bridge 1748
- Venice, The Grand Canal looking North from the Rialto Bridge 18th century
- The Fishermen’s Village at Pirna
- View of Pirna with the Fortress of Sonnenstein 1755-65
- Vaprio d’Adda 1744