Canaletto and the Art of Venice
Queen’s Gallery, London, until Nov 12
There’s a feast of Canaletto just around the corner from Buckingham Palace, in the Queen’s Gallery – and all of it from the Royal Collection. The paintings were bought by George III from Joseph Smith, an English merchant and the British Consul to Venice, who was Canaletto’s friend and agent.
Most of them are of Venice, of course, including a series of 12 paintings which are basically snapshots of a journey along the Grand Canal from one end to the other. We think of Canaletto’s work as almost photographic in its detail, but the exhibition reveals that he wasn’t afraid to manipulate reality, making a canal wider or a building taller, or moving it for the sake of a more pleasing composition.
