Francesco Guardi, 1712 Venedig – 1793 ebenda Lot n° 392

Piazza San Marco with the Campanile Oil on canvas. 28,5 x 44,4 cm. In à jour worked gilded frame with naming the artist. Attached expertise of Dario Succi. Skillful central perspective depiction of St. Mark's Square in Venice with its campanile marking a strong vertical line, the top of which extends far beyond the upper boundary of the picture. The horizon line marked by St. Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace as imaginary crossbars. Overall in Guardi's typical brisk brushwork, this is expressed especially in the non-rigid, that is, non-architectural elements of the painting, particularly in the figures, which interact with each other and their loose composition stimulates the viewer's imagination. One of the most important painters of Venetian vedutism, Guardi, unlike Canaletto, does not strive for sharply perceptible results in his paintings, but proposes a subjective and evocative interpretation of reality, creating fleeting and unreal cityscapes that, thanks to the blurring of forms and melancholic shadows, sometimes achieve a sensibility that can be described as pre-Romantic. His training and much of his activity until 1760 were carried out together with his older brother Giannantonio, who was in charge of the family workshop. Compared to his brother, he showed a different sensibility early on with a quick, broken brushstroke that rendered the connection between figures and atmosphere. His interest in landscapes led him to approach vedutism around 1755. He proposed a personal interpretation that replaced the documentary component in favor of an atmospheric representation capable of reproducing the particular vividness of the light of the lagoon and its inhabitants. Guardi began producing his first vedute, probably to tap into the lucrative market of foreign visitors that had been vacated in those years by Canaletto, who had left for England. His early works borrowed from the compositions of Canaletto and Marieschi, the pictorial compositions fluid and controlled, still far from the crisp, shorthand style that was to make him famous. However, his unique style was already evident in some of these early works, in which figures constructed from frothy mixtures of colors reveal a vivid chromatic timbre. This resulted in masterpieces such as the two Vedute della Ca d'Oro (Views of the Ca' d'Oro) or those preserved in museums around the world. His most successful period was between the seventh and eighth decades of the 18th century: in 1764 he was commissioned to paint two large views of St. Mark's Square for an Englishman. Somewhat later he produced the twelve paintings of the Doge's Feasts based on Canaletto's designs, engraved by Giambattista Brustolon. Francesco Guardi derived his paintings from the prints, which are now in the Louvre: The result is truly amazing and reveals the transfiguring and fantastic power of the painter. In 1782 he was commissioned to create four paintings commemorating the visit of Pope Pius VI to Venice. For the artist, now seventy years old, it was finally an official commission, followed by the paintings celebrating the arrival in Venice of the Archdukes of Russia, who came incognito under the name of the Conti del Nord. The paintings that were to commemorate the marriage between Duke Armando di Polignac and Baroness Idalia of Neukirchen were never made, but the magnificent preparatory sheets for them are preserved in the Museum of Prints and Drawings of the Museo Correr. As time goes by, his very personal style becomes more and more free and allusive: the proportions between the different elements are freely changed, the perspective structure becomes elastic and deforms without any connection to reality. Eventually, the figures become simple splashes of color, a quick white scribble, or a black dot traced with a flickering marker. He also painted some magnificent images of villas amidst the verdant Venetian countryside. (†) (1330518) (13) Francesco Guardi, 1712 Venice - 1793 ibid. PIAZZA SAN MARCO WITH CAMPANILE Oil on canvas. 28.5 x 44.4 cm. Gilt openwork frame with name of the artist. Accompanied by an expert's report by Dario Succi. Skilful depiction of Saint Mark's Square in Venice in central perspective with the strong vertical line of its campanile extending far beyond the top edge of the painting. The horizon line through Saint Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace is marked as an imaginary cross bar. Overall, the painting shows the swift brushwork typic