Artwork Information
Terugkeer van de Bucentauro naar de pier bij het Palazzo Ducale
Canaletto
1727-1729
In deze drukke scène vangt Canaletto de absolute chaos en grootsheid van de belangrijkste dag van Venetië. De gouden Bucintoro, de enorme staatsbarge van de Doge, keert terug van de ceremonie van het 'Huwelijk met de Zee', omringd door een waanzinnige zwerm gondels en gretige toeschouwers. Bekend om zijn haarscherpe architectonische nauwkeurigheid, gebruikte Canaletto waarschijnlijk een camera obscura om het perspectief van het Dogepaleis en de Campanile perfect vast te leggen. Het is een perfecte momentopname van de 18e-eeuwse Venetiaanse praal, die Britse toeristen op de Grand Tour als ultiem souvenir kochten.
Interpretation Content
October 13 marks the anniversary of Canaletto's death. Born in Venice in 1697 and buried there in 1768, he earned fame for his scrupulously accurate city views and stands as the most celebrated landscape painter of eighteenth-century Venice.
Painted around 1727–1729, this canvas shows the Doge returning aboard the golden state barge, the Bucintoro, to the pier of the Palazzo Ducale after the Ascension Day ceremony of the Marriage of the Sea. Gondolas press in from every side, the crowd clamours, and splendour and confusion merge into a single spectacle.
The Palazzo Ducale, the campanile and the lagoon form the stage; the perspective is rigorously constructed, perhaps with the aid of a camera obscura. Canaletto weaves architecture, vessels, shimmering water and thronging figures into a theatre upon the water, recording both the rituals and the commercial vitality of the Republic.
His Venice is at once a real city and an imagined one for European travellers. British Grand Tourists competed to acquire his paintings as souvenirs, spreading the city's fame far beyond the lagoon. Looking again at this picture on the anniversary of his death, one sees with particular clarity how he fixed in light and water the glory and the everyday life of the maritime Republic.