The 1700s in Venice, with its
light and shade, will be on display at an exhibit to be held at
Palazzo Ducale that will focus on an extraordinary century for
art with Giovanni Antonio Canaletto as the absolute star. The
show will run from February 23 until June 9. It is promoted by
the Fondazione Musei Civici in Venice and curated by Alberto
Craievich, in cooperation with Paris' RMN-Grand Palais.
This artistic season of great complexity and value for
painting, sculpture and decorative arts featured great changes
in the history of ideas and techniques, as well as in social
life.
The exhibit focuses on the evolution of art that broke its
ties with the rigor of Classicism and the theatricals of the
Baroque period as color gained the lead role over design.
Luca Carlevarijs was key in defining Venetian landscapes,
Rosalba Carrera renewed portraits.
Two young contemporaries painted masterworks in which light
played a key part - Giambattista Tiepolo with aggressive brush
strokes in dynamic compositions, Canaletto in landscape painting
in a style that will progressively become more controlled and
pure.
Pietro Longhi's work is also exhibited as well as the great
season of engravings and of Giambattista Piranesi.
The art of Murano glass, gold jewelry and the manufacture of
porcelain are also on display.
The protagonists of the end of the century are Francesco
Guardi and Giandomenico Tiepolo, son of Giambattista. Guardi's
art is far removed from Canaletto's sunny certainties and
appears to evoke a declining Venice while the city's
aristocratic and happy life leaves room to an era of
irreverence, where everybody is free and equal, with the
revolution setting France on fire in the background. The 1700s
and the show end with Neoclassicism and Antonio Canova.
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