Canaletto: Grand Designs Canaletto: Grand Designs Download this lecture In 1746 the great Venetian artist, Canaletto, moved to London following the market and wealth for his work. Nine years later, he left the city attacked by the critics as repetitive and a fake. What was 18th Century London like to be the centre of such hope and disappointment? How did Canaletto feel about the city, and how are we to assess these views today? This is a part of the London Through the Eyes of Foreign Artists Mondays at One lecture series. Martin Gayford Martin Gayford studied philosophy at Cambridge, and art history at the Courtauld Institute of London University. He has written prolifically about art and jazz, contributing regularly to the Daily Telegraph and also to many art magazines and exhibition catalogues. He was art critic of the Spectator 1994-2002 and subsequently of the Sunday Telegraph before becoming chief art critic for Bloomberg News. His book about Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, “The Yellow House” (2005) was published in Britain and the USA to critical acclaim, and has been translated to date into five languages.

“Constable in Love”, a study of John Constable’s romance with Maria Bicknell, and their lives between 1809 and 1816 was published in 2009 by Penguin Fig Tree; he was also co-curator with Anne Lyles of the exhibition “John Constable Portraits” at the National Portrait Gallery and Compton Verney in 2009. His portrait by Lucian Freud, “Man with a Blue Scarf” (2005) has been exhibited at the Correr Museum, Venice and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Martin Gayford is married, with two children, and lives in Cambridge, England. His book about posing for Lucian Freud, also entitled “Man with a Blue Scarf” is published by Thames & Hudson in September, 2010. Read More Martin Gayford 8/3/2010 On June 3rd, 1747 an engraving was published in London. It showed, as a contemporary advertisement put it, "A Most beautiful view of the City of London, taken through one of the Centers of the Arches of the New Bridge at Westminster".

The painting on which the print was based is indeed a remarkable one, we are looking at it now. It puts you, the viewer, on the Thames in the mid 18th century. Here we are bobbing up and down on the Thames in the first part of the year 1747. We are underneath one of the arches of the new Westminster Bridge, probably the fourth from the Lambeth bank of the river which retained its centring until April 1747. Over our heads is that massive wooden scaffolding - or centring - used to construct each arch of the new bridge, and above that the stone vault itself. Ahead, at eye level, is the teeming life of the river. Beyond that rises the bulk of St Paul's in the distance, the spires of the Wren Churches, and a mass of brick buildings, all vanished, along the banks. This is Georgian London seen by a great painter: Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768), better known as Canaletto. It is a wonderfully specific image. There are many others.

The best of them give you the feeling that you've opened the window and looked out to see St James Park, Whitehall, or Somerset House just as they were 250 years ago. No one, with the possible exception of Hogarth takes us in the same way into the streets of mid Georgian London as Canaletto does in this wonderful and celebrated picture from 1752 of old Northumberland House at the junction of the Strand and Whitehall. Or here takes us for a walk among the vanished pleasures of Vauxhall Gardens or the interior of the Rotonda at Ranelagh in Chelsea, which was a sort of indoor Vauxhall where polite society could mingle and enjoy entertainments in all weathers. About a decade after this was painted in 1754, by the way, the young Mozart played that organ on the right. Or here we are in St James Park, before the new Horse Guards building went up. Westminster Abbey, on the other hand has changed scarcely at all - either inside, in this view of Henry VII's chapel, or out. Though its worth noting that the building had only just attained its familiar appearance.

This picture was probably commissioned by the Dean, Joseph Wilcocks who we see processing very grandly behind all the knights of the order of the Bath on the 26th of June, 1749. The point of the picture though, may well have been to mark the completion of Hawksmoor's towers, which after decades of delay were finally finished around 1745. But on the whole one of the pleasures of Canaletto's London is that it is - almost - an unknown city. His paintings of Venice represent one of the urban places on the face of the earth that has changed least in the last three centuries. That is not true of London. As JG Links pointed out, "Between Lambeth Palace and Greenwich Hospital, which still stand, not a building on the banks of the Thames remains as it was in Canaletto's day" Here's Canaletto's Greenwich, we'll see Lambeth Palace a little later. Canaletto spent nine years of his life in Britain, with the exception of an eight month trip back to his native city in 1750 to 51.

He was almost fifty when he arrived here in 1746, almost 60 when he finally left in 1755 (he is recorded as back in Venice in December of that year). That is nearing a decade, a big chunk out of any artistic career. Canaletto was in London quite long enough to qualify as British by adoption - like Handel or Fuseli. But he was here quite long enough for England to make a mark on him and for his art to leave a lasting trace on British painting. Both of those exchanges occurred as I'll be explaining. And Canaletto's London work is at it's best as splendid as any he ever did - and, in my view still to this day undervalued. But all this raises a question, what on earth was Canaletto doing sketching in a boat on the choppy waters of the River Thames or sketching on the Strand. After all, he is - of all the painters who ever lived - one of those most identified with a particular place and a specific set of views: not Westminster and Whitehall, but San Marco, the Rialto, Santa Maria della Salute and San Giorgio Maggiore.

To answer that, we need to go back several decades and ask who was Giovanni Antonio Canal, what was so special about his painting, and why was it so appealing to the British. He was the son of one Bernardo Canal, a man who is known to have been a specialist in designing and painting stage scenery. That is to say, he worked in a thriving late baroque Italian tradition of which the leading representatives were the Galli-Bibiena several generations of whom dominated theatre design throughout Italy and Central Europe. They specialised, in this example, in dizzyingly complex architectural fantasias, using every trick of tromp l'oeil illusion that Italian artists had developed since the 15th century. Canaletto started to following his father's line of work (hence his tremendously but accidentally appropriate nickname, Canaletto - 'Little Canal'). In 1720 a Scarlatti opera performed in Rome in 1720 with scenery by Bernardo and his son Antonio. But according to Anton Marco Zanetti, a connoisseur and writer on art of the time, he grew tired of the theatre, which he 'solemnly renounced' and instead 'devoted himself entirely to painting views after nature'.

What did that mean? The urban view was not an Italian speciality but a northern, and particularly Dutch genre. Here's perhaps the greatest, certainly the most famous example: Vermeer's View of Delft of around 1660. Now the painting of views, or in Italian, vedute, had been brought to Venice originally by a travelling Dutch painter, Gaspar van Wittel - Vanvitelli as he was called south of the Alps. He painted all over the place, but also in Venice - where this was done about the time that Canaletto was born. Van Wittel had a Venetian follower, Luca Carlevaris, who was of Canaletto's father's generation. He was pretty good in his way, but not as outstanding, connoisseurs apparently agreed as this new young man who came along in the 1720s, Sig Antonio Canal, Canaletto. He work was astounding. In a letter to a collector who collected the older artist's work there is this brief account of why Canaletto was so good. His work, "is like that of Carlevaris, but you can see the sun shining in it".

It was the effect of outdoor naturalistic light that first impressed people. So how did he get it? Canaletto was highly secretive about his working methods, George Vertue, an engraver and antiquarian who kept diaries of the Georgian art world noted, his "reservedness & shyness in being seen at work, at any time, or anywhere". This was one of the reasons, as we shall see why Vertue and others became suspicious that the Canaletto who had arrived and set up business in London wasn't the real, famous one at all, but an imposter - more about that later. But secretiveness suggests he had secrets. And I think it's pretty clear what one of them was: this is it, the camera obscura. It's extremely likely that Vermeer and other used one of these, but there isn't documentary evidence in his case. In Canaletto's, there is. The same Zanetti wrote that he not only used it, but also knew how to correct the 'errors that occur in the picture when the artist follows too closely the lines of the perspective' - that is the sort of zooming effect that a lens can create.

A camera obscura is effectively like an ordinary, pre-digital camera - but without the film. There is one in the Correr Museum with Canaletto's name on it. The image can be focused instead of on sensitive film, on a piece of paper, where the artist can quickly trace the crucial lines. And that's exactly what Canaletto is doing here in these drawings of the church of san Giovanni and Paolo (very similar drawings exist of the Banqueting House and Old Horse Guards in London). By using the camera obscura, Canaletto could create rapid and precise images of the urban scene, and - just as important - observe the natural, outdoor light effects. Art historians have traditionally been very protective of the artists they study when the camera obscura is mentioned, feeling no doubt that it is a disreputable form of cheating. That is nonsense, I think. Using it is the way that Canaletto did was tremendously skillful and innovative, and no more disreputable than later artists such as Sickert and Bacon using real photographs. We have to remember too that it was only half his bag of tricks.

Looking at a picture such as this splendid one form the National Gallery of the annual parade on August 16th when the Doge and retinue visited the Church of San Rocco, you might well think you are looking at something like a sumptuous, hand-painted 18th century colour photograph. And, up to a point you are. But you are also looking at a tremendous feat of mental and imaginative adjustment. Because the place from which we are apparently witnessing this scene doesn't exist - or rather - it is somewhere in the chancel of the church of the Frari. As JG Links - the leading expert on the artist - emphasised, there is scarcely a picture which does not involve a mixing of view-points and moving of buildings to produce the most impressive spectacle. Canaletto, while maintaining great topographical accuracy in some ways, was very insouciant about the facts in others if he thought he could improve a picture by redesigning a place. He was also a great master of architectural fantasy much like his stage-designing father. Here's his idea of what the Rialto bridge would have looked like if the plans of the great architect Andrea Palladio had actually been built.

This so-called capriccio is actually just as much a part of the work he did in London as the views of Westminster Bridge and the Strand. It's one of three, all three commissioned c. 1753-5 by Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk for Norfolk House on east side of St James Sq. Of which Horace Walpole remarked, "you never saw a scene of such magnificence and taste` So in the 1720s, 30s, and early '40s, Canaletto did well out of painting views, and particularly out of selling them to the English. The love affair between Venice and the English really got going in the 1700s. French and Germans gentry were also inclined to go on the Grand tour, as it was called, south to Italy. But the British were especially enthusiastic, and Venice was a mandatory destination. In contrast to Rome - the other obligatory stop - it was a city of pleasure, of carnivals, masked balls, and music. That was perhaps one reason why it became fashionable to buy a view or set of views to recall this delightful place.

I also suspect that the novel, almost scientific precision of Canaletto's work appeal to the 18th century English eye. There was a convenient agent for buying your Canalettos. In fact there were two,. Owen McSwiney, described by the late J G Links as 'an engaging Irishman with a taste for art and theatre and a proneness to financial disasters' who in 1727 had the idea of selling Canaletto's views to an English nobleman, the Duke of Richmond. And an Italianised Englishman named Joseph Smith - later the consul in Venice who was ready to negotiate a price with the artist, make sure he delivered, pack up the pictures and dispatch them to Britain. Smith also bought Canaletto's work himself, so prolifically that when he finally sold his collection to George III it contained 53 paintings and 140 drawings by that artist - the greatest array of Canaletto's work in the world. Joseph Smith, richer, more efficient and better-connected, also saw the opportunity and did the same. Over the next decade, mainly through Smith English aristocrats bought Canaletto in amazing quantities - almost wholesale.

The painter produced 20 views for the Duke of Bedford, another 20 for Sir Robert Hervey, and seventeen for the Earl of Carlisle. Then, in the early 1740s, the flow of visitors on the Grand Tour began to dry up because of the hostilities of the Austrian War of Succession, one of those long complicated conflicts that make 18th century history hard to follow. Virtually all the states in Europe took part on one side or the other, and by the 1740s it had spread to the Alps and Italy making the Grand Tour awkward. Vertue noted, 'of late few persons travel to Italy from hence during the wars` So Canaletto decided to follow his customers home. It's wouldn't seem a strange thing to do if Canaletto weren't so closely associated in our minds with the topography of Venice. There had been expatriate Italian painters in England for decades. One of them, Jacopo Amigoni apparently advised Canaletto to make the trip. Amigoni had done well in England during the 1730s, here's a painting he did at Moor Park, near Rickmansworth.

Towards the end of May 1746, Vertue jotted down that there had arrived, 'from Venice the famous painter of Views Cannaletti of Venice the multitude of his works done abroad for English noblemen and Gentlemen has procured a great reputation & his great merit and excellence in that way, he is much esteemed and no doubt but that his views and works he doth here will give the same satisfaction' He added though a note of doubt - - tho' many persons already have his pictures.' The question was, what could Canaletto supply that was new? One answer - maybe another reason why he came just then, was the opening of Westminster Bridge. This new river crossing, as tends to be the case with big transport projects in London, had been the subject of a marathon controversy. The watermen, who ran a sort of taxi service, said it would ruin their trade. It was complained that it would cause a sewage build-up, the Thames would silt, and that consequently it would be impossible to provide London with water. There were fears that St Thomas's Hospital would be flooded and 5,000 drowned.

When the structure was finished, one of the arches started to subside and - just like the Millennium. This drawing shows it in that condition as it was in April and May 1749. Certainly, Canaletto painted the bridge repeatedly, and it different guises. The view through the arch wit which we began was painted for Sir Hugh Smithson, bt, who later became the Due of Northumberland, and was one of the commissioners of the controversial bridge, so naturally took and interest in it. This rather beautiful view was for a young central European nobleman Prince Lobkowitz, 'a travelling boy of 20' who was on his own grand tour in England. That may be why, of all Canaletto's Thames pictures it seems most convincingly London-y. You believe the 18th century river looked like this. But something odd begins to happen in for example this picture of the Bridge as it appeared on Lord Mayor's Day, 29th October 1746. That is London seems to turn into Venice St Paul's into St Mark's and the Thames into the Grand Canal.

He seems to revel in opportunities to represent the pageantry of the water, with the stage barges of the mayor and the royal family standing for the gondolas and Doge's state barge the Bucintoro. It's true too of this magnificent view of the Thames and the City of London on Lord Mayor's Day. In the past, that effect was one of the reasons that Canaletto's London works were looked down on. It may, to some extent though, have been exactly what his clients wanted. It has been suggested that his Whig clients actually requested this implied comparison between their metropolis and mercantile, oligarchic Venice- Venice was in fact a predecessor of Britain with a carefully curtailed constitutional monarchy and a sea-borne trading empire. In the mid 18th century, also, the English aristocracy were in the process of rebuilding the country after the style of Palladio, that quintessentially Venetian architect. So, in rearranging London to look more Venetian, Canaletto was actually following a cultural trend.

Perhaps that was what he was doing in this drawing of the river as seen from the terrace of old Somerset House, and this splendid prospect of the Thames, painted from the Duke of Richmond's house in Whitehall. This painting also gives us an insight into how he set about gaining clients in London. He did so, to start with, by using his old agent Owen McSwiney - described by Links as ""an engaging Irishman with a taste for art and theatre and a proneness to financial disasters" - to approach the Duke who already owned a number of Venetian Canalettos. McSwiney met the Duke's old tutor Thomas Hill at dinner on May 20, 1746, - where apparently McSwiney got "almost drunk - and Hill wrote immediately the Duke. "I told him the best service I thought you could do for him that is, Canaletto] wd be to let him a view of the river from yr dining room, which in my opinion would give him as much reputation as any of his Venetian prospects". It took some time before Canaletto got the commission, but here's that very picture: very probably actually painted in the dining room of Richmond House.

And here's its pair - the view fr4om the other side of Richmond House, looking towards Whitehall. We see the Duke's stables in the foreground and next to that Montagu House - where McSwiney and Hill had had that bibulous dinner. In the background to the left the Holbein Gate - a 16th century structure soon to be demolished and the only building still standing in the whole vista, Inigo Jones' Banqueting House. Canaletto also experimented in acting as his own agent, even mounting mini-exhibitions in his studio. On 25 July, 1749 he placed an notice in the Daily Advertiser, "any gentleman that will be pleased to come to his house to see a picture done by him being a view of St James' Park" could attend for the next 15 days between 9 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon and 4 until 7 in the evening (which gives us a pretty precise timing for Canaletto's meal time). Canaletto, we know from this lived with a cabinet-maker called Wiggins on what was then Silver Street, but is now 41 Beak street. This stratagem worked.

He may have hoped to sell it to Sir Watkin Williams Wynn MP, whose house is prominent in the right foreground, with servants cleaning a large carpet for the London season. Unfortunately, Sir Watkin died just about then of a fall from his horse, but Canaletto succeeded in selling t to the Earl of Radnor, who was very pleased. With his buy describing it as "the most capital picture I ever saw of that master" (it now belongs to Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber). But by that time, Canaletto's presence in London had begun to cause some resentment among local, English artists. Or so you might deduce from some rather bitchy remarks jotted down by Vertue. "On the whole of him something is strange or obscure. He does not produce works so well done as those of Venice.. especially his figures .. which are much inferior to those done abroad", there was even a rumour that this man living in Soho He is not the veritable Canaletti of Venice". He was in fact, an imposter. Next month, Vertue withdrew this suggestion and explained how the misunderstanding had occurred. There were in fact two Canaletttos at work in northern Europe.

The original one, who was now operating in London and his nephew and pupil Bernardo Bellotto who had established himself in Dresden - here is one of his views of that town in its rococo glory. The confusion was understandable because Belotto actually used to sign his picture "Bernardo Canaletto" on occasion, and they were of superb quality. In fact, though it was unfair to say - as Vertue remarked, that some of Canaletto's London paintings were "no better than some painters in England can do". But he did have a rival in his nephew, who was his match as a painter of views. Canaletto had his ups and downs in England. In 1751 when he again exhibited a picture in his lodgings on Silver Street, it didn't work and the picture was subsequently cut in half presumably to make it more saleable. But something remarkable happened as time went on. Canaletto, that most Venetian of Venetian painters, began get a feeling for England and English architecture. He may may have started by making the Thames look like the Grand Canal, but he was soon tacking the most English of subjects.

Here's his take on Windsor Castle, done we know from an inscription on the back "by sig Canaletti who took the view from the window of a small cottage at the end of the enclosure next to Mr Crowle's garden finished July 11 1747." His later picture of Eton from across the across the Thames is a bit cavalier with the facts. There are complaints, for example that the church on the left never existed. But it does show how Canaletto was beginning to get his eye in for something he certainly would never have seen I Venice; English perpendicular gothic architecture. There is even an acceptance of the English weather in this charming picture of the new bridge at Walton, 25 miles up river form Westminster, seen in a sudden shower of rain. Tomas Hollis, the patron who bought this and several other assorted Canalettos is visible in the middle wearing yellow, with a friend named Thomas Brand, his servant Francesco and dog Malta, and the painter on a stool sketching is presumably Canaletto himself. In the end English elements even got into his fantasies.

Here's a picture in which a perpendicular building, identified as the ruined chapel of St Catherine, Guildford, has been transported in imagination to the Venetian lagoon. And in this picture which was painted for Baron Hollis whose country house was between Guildford and Godalming, the opposite seems to have happened. A number of Italian and ancient Roman structures have appeared in what is quite definitely the neighbourhood of Box Hill. So there is a more amazing cross-cultural phenomenon than Canaletto in London: Canaletto in Surrey. I'm going to end by suggesting that the influence worked both ways. I think Canaletto's decade in London left more of a mark on British art than is usually reckoned. Turner and Girtin copied his works in their youth, Paul Sandby followed his practice of using the camera obscura. Indeed the late 18th and 19th century obsession with topographical views was surely stimulated by this great master of the form living in Britain for almost a decade.

The greatest tribute to him perhaps is time, painted in 1796 by William Marlow: the ultimate comment on Canaletto's sojourn in London: St Paul's plonked down in the middle of a Venetian vista of canals. ©Martin Gayford, Gresham College 2010 Related Future Lectures Canaletto's London Legacy Canaletto's London Legacy Download this lecture Canaletto's paintings have defined the look of mid-eighteenth century London, influencing future generations of landscape artists. His works are instantly recognisable for their polished translucent views of the city. This lecture will explore the extent to which Canaletto built upon the existing visual landscape of London and how much he adapted and innovated works by artists like Samuel Scott to produce stunning aspects of London. Part of the Mondays at One series on Artists in London No reservations are required for this lecture. It will be run on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. Doors will open 30 minutes before the start of the lecture. Pat is Curator of Paintings, Prints and Drawings at the Museum of London.

Read More This is part of the series: Artists in London Subjects Canaletto’s London Legacy Dr Pat Hardy The Venetian artist Canaletto (1697-1768) has been very influential in providing a legacy for the image of London. The contemporary commentator John Gwynn wrote in London and Westminster Improved in 1766, ‘The English are now what the Romans were of old, distinguished like them by power and opulence and excelling all other nations in commerce and navigation’. Predominant economic and military strength were the defining features of London in the mid eighteenth century and Canaletto was the artist to project this. During his relatively short stay in London between 1746 and 1755 he produced a series of strikingly beautiful views of the city which have provided a new pictorial definition of the capital, and influencing the direction of London landscape art for the future. The city through Canaletto’s eyes looked tidied up, clean and neat, pristine like a glass paperweight, and we see this in his paintings, London, the Thames from the terrace of Somerset House towards the City, 1750-51 (Fig.

2) and London, the Thames from the terrace of Somerset House looking towards Westminster, 1750-1 (Fig. 3) both Royal Collection. When the two pictures are placed together they create a long panorama of the river, showcasing the main landmarks, St Paul’s Cathedral, surrounded by more than three dozen of Wren’s spires and churches, and Westminster Abbey shown under a brilliant blue sky. Canaletto painted from the terrace of Somerset House, the river stairs are visible in the left foreground located on the great bend of the Thames almost equidistant between St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, affording fine views of the City of London and the City of Westminster. In the view to Westminster can be seen the newly completed Westminster Bridge, the four towers of the Church of St John the Evangelist and Westminster Hall and further to the right Westminster Abbey and the Banqueting House, all of which survive today but further to the right is the wooden tower of the York Buildings waterworks, now destroyed. Somerset House, absent from the panorama paintings, is shown in this drawing by Canaletto (Fig.4) View of Old Somerset House from the Thames, undated, held at Yale Center for British Art.

Somerset House was, technically, still a royal palace but had fallen into disrepair to the extent that for instance in 1730 Anne of Denmark’s Bedchamber in Somerset House collapsed. Most of the rooms were given over as grace and favour lodgings by the owners, the Prince and Princess of Wales (later George II), given at royal whim as a reward for services or compensation for hard times. Somerset House had become marooned as a rundown property when the social gravity of London moved west to St James and the Strand deteriorated as a high class place of residence. Tenements had been developed into shops and new Georgian terraces built. In the drawing the wall looks slightly dilapidated and the garden overgrown. Somerset House, then, to some extent, typified the evolution of Georgian society in which monarchical absolutism was replaced by a politically divided aristocracy committed to the production and display of wealth. It was a society governed by the categorical and unconditional elevation of property as a central tenet, based on Locke, Blackstone and Adam Smith’s ideas of celebrating the owner’s right to enjoyment of his property.

Landed ownership meant the freedom to pursue favoured interests and one of the most favoured interests was that of government and government from Westminster. The ruling classes perpetuated the ideas of personal liberty, predominance of property, protection against foreign competition, minimal internal intervention and created the conditions for a massive economic surge. In harnessing this potential they also sought to express it by building lavish town houses and sponsoring civic projects not only to showcase their wealth but to facilitate its production. There is little sign of ruin and decay in Canaletto’s paintings. Instead Canaletto made London look new and beautiful. Canaletto gave an unprecedented spaciousness to the visual landscape which was partly effected by his favoured device of using two viewpoints in a painting some 10 degrees apart conveying the appearance of a much more open vista than was attainable in practice- the equivalent of the wide angle view. He did manipulate the landscape and we can see this in his pen and ink drawing of the City from the terrace of Somerset House held at the Courtauld Gallery (Fig.5). The viewpoints in the drawing and the painting are slightly different and the terrace is shown from a slightly different angle.

In both we are directed to St Paul’s Cathedral by the vertical of this long terrace wall, and by the clustering of boats and masts which point diagonally towards the dome by which are much more defined in the painting. The buildings are smaller in relation to the picture surface in the painting again accentuating the sweep and spaciousness of the view. The view was engraved for wider dissemination and this is an example published by Edward Rooker in 1750 which also has titles in French, indicating its popularity. (Fig.6). In this talk, therefore, I would like to explore how Canaletto, in effect, reinvented the London landscape the legacy he left and the contribution of some other contemporary artists in shaping the city’s image. London was a city ripe for change, a city which expanded massively from the 1750s until the mid-nineteenth century and whose image was adapted accordingly. This image was one in which Canaletto played an important but as we shall we see a far from solitary role in formulating. Having looked at Canaletto’s take on the view of London from Somerset House let’s look at his artistic legacy.

These views proved extremely popular and were produced by artists such as William James, demonstrated in his drawing St Paul’s Cathedral and the River Thames from the Terrace of Old Somerset House, London c.1750 (Fig.7) (V&A). Thought to be a studio assistant of Canaletto and renowned as a painter of Venice whose views were bought up by Grand Tour patrons James here shows a lightness of touch in depicting the city. The couple on the terrace seem to be dancing along this walkway admiring the view as they progress while St Paul’s rises gracefully above the surrounding decoratively delineated buildings. Paul Sandby (1725-1809) celebrated as the father of British watercolour produced two panoramic drawings, now at the British Museum, of the same view looking to east and west, both clearly influenced by Canaletto’s view.(Figs 8) but widening it out substantially. Born in Nottingham he came to London where he worked in the Ordinance Office at the Tower of London as a draughtsman. Like Canaletto, he wanted to capture the sweep of the Thames panorama.

In both drawings the landmarks of London, St Paul’s, Middle Temple, Monument and Westminster Bridge are clearly visible and the depth of the terrace accentuates the idea of London as a parkland with the backdrop of the Thames, where Londoners can walk at leisure enjoying their surroundings under the shade of trees. The sense of clean air and spaciousness is predominant. Also an oil painted before 1775 (Fig. 9) with Westminster appearing much closer. William Daniell in this handcoloured aquatint of 1805 Westminster seen from the Embankment at Somerset House before the construction of Waterloo Bridge of 1805 (Fig.10) (Museum of London).This view looks over the terrace of the recently built Adelphi Terrace beside Somerset House on the north bank looking down to Westminster. One of six views of London, a very flat work which introduces the black smoke emitted by the factories in Southwark.

As late as the 1870s the artist John O’Connor produced two views of this section of the river comparing it before and after the construction of the Embankment (a major civic project, aiming to create a barrier between the Thames and the river banks in order to build Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s huge sewer, designed to clean up the Thames). The first painting by him shows York Water Gate and the Adelphi from the River, 1872 (Fig. 11) and Somerset House is set back from the river with the focus instead on the York Water Gate and the Adelphi Terrace. It shows the position before the major engineering achievement of The Embankment. In contrast, the painting, The Embankment, 1874, (Fig.12) both Museum of London ,looking towards St Paul’s Cathedral and Cannon Street imparts a spaciousness to the city, over 120 years after Canaletto’s similar view. It is a bright lively picture with sunlight catching the gleam of the regularly spaced new street gaslights, and the bayonets of the red coated Grenadier Guards marching to their barracks at the Tower.

The uncongested road stretches in a broad ribbon to a skyline that combines order and tradition in the form of the Gothic Hall of the Middle Temple, state and spiritual authority in the shape of St Paul’s and the technological present and future in the gasometers (whose rounded domes echo the dome of St Paul’s), the smoking factory chimneys, the steaming railway train and the shining new train shed at Cannon Street station ,again whose rounded domes catch the eye and add symmetry to the composition. The work is animated by the fresh greenery of the young saplings, recently installed like the gasworks, and the glistening surface of the river. The figure of the nursemaid looking down upon the Embankment (and the soldiers) creates a vignette of domesticity and also mimics the position of the viewer looking down on this scene. The contradictions in the painting are carefully reconciled- the lowly and the grand, peace and military preparedness, leisure and employment, particular and general. It is a painting which is very much of the moment but which at the same time draws upon past artistic conventions and in particular the interest shown in views of the river from this key spot of the terrace of Somerset House.

So the idea of London introduced by Canaletto which has become embedded in our consciousness and which has been emulated by later artists, is stately, shimmering, sunny, and populated with figures which provide interest and colour. It was a new, unprecedented vision of mid eighteenth-century London which was very influential. But this view was founded upon a solid topographical landscape, artistic tradition which was flourishing in London before Canaletto’s arrival and on which it could be argued that Canaletto used to develop his vision. We need therefore to take a look backwards as well as forwards when working out what was this London legacy and how was it formed. London, as the preeminent city in Europe, was incessantly drawn and painted, Wenceslaus Hollar is a good example and this is his The Prospect of London and Westminster taken from Lambeth c. 1647, engraving (Fig. 13). Hollar was born in Prague, moved to Cologne and established himself as a print maker, met the Earl of Arundel who brought him back to London where he began to produce commercial prints of London.

London also provided a refuge to Flemish artists arriving in London from the 1670s onwards following the French invasion of the Netherlands and they brought their distinctive techniques of flat print making and map making. Artists at this time chose to depict the city stretched out in a line from a bird’s eye view taken from the south bank. In these works, London was often visualised from an indeterminate point in mid air in a very linear format with the emphasis on accuracy of perspective. These landscapes complemented the plethora of maps and panoramas which were increasingly popular as Londoners sought to understand their own city. John Rocque produced the first new map of London in 1746 since 1682. He was a Huguenot surveyor who lived in Soho. The title of his map was London and Westminster or even An exact Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, the Boroughs of Southwark with the Country near ten miles round 1746 ( Fig.14). This section shows Charing Cross and Northumberland House.

The survey took nine years to measure and it was 13ft wide and 6and a half ft deep, going through eight editions by 1769, indicative of the interest Londoners felt in their city. Rocque was determined that the map should be as accurate as possible employing detailed techniques for example obtaining the true bearing of steeples from different positions using trigonometrically computed proportions. There were also a significant number of British born artists working in London prior to Canaletto’s arrival. They were often unknown as they had been trained through the City Guild system operating in London. From the Middle Ages all painters working in the City of London had to join the Painters-Stainers Company which trained heraldic, decorative, mural and coach painters, as well as fine artists before the establishment of the St Martin’s Lane Academy in 1735. Such British artists included Samuel Scott (1701-72) and Joseph Nickolls (1692-1760) who were later joined by William Marlow (1740-1813) and all painted the London landscape ensuring that London was presented as the pre eminent capital in the eighteenth century.

But these artists had to work hard to present London in this light. Despite its size and prosperity Georgian London was not a city to astonish the observer with its lavish modern architecture. The population by 1750 was about 750,000 and growing rapidly. It was a very disorderly city, a rambling series of narrow streets, wood buildings lining the river and functioning crowded wharfs, shot through with the muddy waters of the Thames, poor drainage, the prevalence of slaughterhouses, unsafe alleys, congestion and a lack of central planning meant streets and squares grew up in a haphazard fashion. None of the royal palaces such as Hampton Court, engraving by Joseph Highmore c. 1744 (Fig.15) approached Continental standards of size or opulence. Number 10 Downing Street was distinctly and deliberately modest. The Crown and the Church both lacked the money and the appetite for an extensive building programme. This meant that artists were constrained by what was actually available to paint and, in the absence of grandiose public architecture and royal palaces, had to be content with the few large town houses which were suitably magnificent or new civic projects like Westminster Bridge.

Impressive aristocratic mansions such as Northumberland House which occupied about four acres and faced onto the Strand near Charing Cross with a frontage stretching 162 ft were exceptional. It stood on the site between the corner of the present Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross Station and was therefore alighted upon as suitable subjects for paintings. Here is a drawing of Northumberland House by Canaletto (Fig.16) and the finished oil 1752 (Fig.17). Built for Henry Howard, 1st Duke of Northampton in 1605-9 it was, in the words of Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘the grandest Jacobean house in London’. After Canaletto’s arrival in London in 1746 he immediately sought to attract wealthy patrons to acquire his paintings. He appealed to the taste of a leading coterie of wealthy landowners by providing an architectural idealism, humanist ideals of order and design which implied civic virtue noble values and a romantic rendition of London’s landscape, despite the lack of obvious landmarks.

One of the artists I mentioned earlier who was working in London before Canaletto arrived was Joseph Nickolls (the son of an agricultural labourer and apprenticed to a Painter- Stainer in 1713) who also painted Northumberland House c. 1750 (Fig.18), Yale Center for British Art, interestingly called Charing Cross with a statue of Charles I and Northumberland House which Canaletto must have seen. Canaletto, by contrast, in his c.1752 painting (return to Fig. 16 and 17) introduced an element of theatricality by manipulating the perspectives and subtly altering the angle of every receding line in order to give Northumberland House more emphasis and thereby created a spaciousness absent in Nickolls’s work. This is the drawing of Northumberland House, c. 1752 from the Minneapolis Institute which is very similar to the painting, the mother and child in the lower right corner and the bench and baskets correspond the cart near the centre, arrangement of figure groups.

However, the main difference is in the shifting of the viewpoint which for the drawing is distinctly further to the right so that four bays of an additional building are included on the far right and the angle of every receding line is subtly altered. This points to the drawing being presented to the owner of Northumberland House, Hugh Smithson, who requested that more emphasis be given to Northumberland House to make the painting less of a London street scene and more of a view of his newly acquired London House. He also ensured that the effect was reminiscent of an Italian summer by using a lighter ground in his works, a light grey with which he covered the canvas. He also added rosy tints in the sky, rarely a hint of London’s infamous smog. So here we have an example of Canaletto following an agenda, based on the patrons he knew and deviating from a strict topographical accuracy relying on his theatrical training of creating set designs and creating a landscape of beauty, elegance, light, compositional proportion and human interest, an image of London which was to have lasting effect.

Westminster Bridge The new civic building project of Westminster Bridge, started in 1739 and completed in 1750, the first bridge in the middle of London to be built over the Thames for six hundred years was of immense interest to London artists. Here is A View of Westminster 1740, by Joseph Nickolls held University of Greenwich collection (Fig.19). It gives an indication of the type of picture which was being produced by London artists. Westminster Bridge was one of the great engineering achievements of the time and greatly improved communications in the City. It represented a new identity for London, the home of political power for an Imperial city, a move from Tudor Whitehall and Somerset House and the medieval city. It is not surprising that Canaletto drew and painted many views of the Bridge for one of the Commissioners of the Bridge was Hugh Smithson, 1st Duke of Northumberland who had invited Canaletto to come to London and therefore an obvious recipient. Here, however, Canaletto could not escape the backdrop of a constantly changing city, in flux, with building and demolition scarred by the debris of a building site.

A city which was littered with half constructed buildings covered in scaffolding, a wooden framework, albeit heralding the new Imperial city. The paintings and drawings of Westminster Bridge are arguably Canaletto’s most important contribution to London, of the six drawings in the Royal Collection acquired by George III in 1762, five are of Westminster Bridge. This is London: Westminster Bridge under Construction, c. 1750 (Fig.20) from the north (Westminster) side of the river and shows the fifth pier and the fourth and fifth arches of the bridge under repair. Men are depicted at work on the bridge. Several small boats are shown on the river, and figures with dogs are shown on the quayside. In Westminster Bridge with a distant view of Lambeth Palace, c.1750 (Fig.21) the wooded hills are compositional inventions. On the right bank of the river the church of St John's, the House of Commons, Westminster Hall, Westminster Abbey, and the church of St Margaret's can be seen. In the centre, on the other side of the river, is Lambeth Palace.

The drawing shows Westminster bridge before all the turrets which surmounted the piers of the arches were completed. Its architect, Charles Labelye, wrote that the Bridge ‘was not only a very beautiful but a most lasting, useful and necessary communication between the neighbouring counties, a considerable Means towards the Increase of Trade, Manufacture and the Useful Arts and a very great ornament to the capital of the British Empire’ and the drawings do confirm this contemporary view. Through colour, composition and a manipulation of scenery Canaletto refocused the London gaze on this bridge. His painting London: A View through an Arch of Westminster, 1746-7 (Fig.22) held by the Duke of Northumberland was described as, ‘A most beautiful view of the City of London taken through one of the Centers of the Arches of the New Bridge at Westminster.’ Canaletto presented Westminster Bridge as a heroic construction, a celebration of civic prowess appealing not least to the bridge’s sponsors and backers and he manipulated the view to create striking perspectives, shadows and detailing. The illusion of distance was created by depicting architecture at a slant running diagonally off the canvas to undetermined horizons.

Canaletto rotated building elevations and added others which were invisible from the original viewpoint to perfect the composition. The Thames lent itself to this type of contrivance for its curves could be rearranged to make the background closer or further away while the rooflines on the waterfront houses could be changed to simplify the architecture creating a series of receding planes that lead the eye to the middle distance and then out again. Here is the drawing from the Royal Collection, The City seen through an arch of Westminster Bridge, c. 1750 (Fig.23) to contrast with the painting and again we see this as being more cluttered and less spacious. The British born artist most closely associated with painting Westminster Bridge is Samuel Scott who produced eleven versions of companion pairs of old London Bridge and Westminster Bridge between 1747 and 1761 based on drawings produced from 1742. Samuel Scott was known in the 1730s as an ingenious ship painter and his marine art reputation has historically overshadowed his abilities as a painter of London landscapes.

Often thought to be derivative, his The Building of Westminster Bridge, 1742 Yale Center of British Art (Fig.24) has been described as entirely lacking Canaletto’s feeling for architecture his luminosity and skill in composition. However, this analysis underplays the experience and ability of Scott as a painter of London landscape. One of the most memorable of Scott’s views of Westminster (and the one in which he has been most compared to Canaletto) is Arch of Westminster Bridge, c.1751, Tate (Fig.25). Scott presents his own vision of Westminster Bridge concentrating on the monumentality of the structure. He painted this view five times. The small size of this version suggests that this was the first. The view looks downstream towards the north bank and is likely to have been taken from a point on the river near the second arch of Westminster Bridge which he worked up from pencil studies he did on the spot. It fails to depict the underside of the right-hand arch, a failure corrected in the final version shown here also held at Tate (Fig.26).

In this painting Scott also modified the too-prominent dome on the turret at the extreme left of the first one into a flat (or flatter) shape. Also in the earlier work a group of masons is shown about to celebrate the apparently imminent conclusion of their work which comprises three rather than two figures; one has perched a wicker basket (for tools) on the ledge of the parapet, a rather intrusive detail which Scott omitted in the final painting. He also increased the shadowing on the arch in the final version to emphasise its depth. Scott’s view in this painting encompasses Fishmarket’s Wharf, Montagu House, Duke of Portland and Earl of Pembroke Houses, Somerset House and the Water Tower. But the focus is Westminster Bridge which in Scott’s work pushes forward from the canvas, its cavernous arch emphasising thickness, solidity and permanence, with the stonework predominate over the civic skyline of delicately composed buildings. The heavy vertical pillar contrasts with the frailities of the wooden struts of Canaletto’s Bridge shown in Fig. 22 and the hanging bucket like a pendulum, rather theatrically draws the eye to the dome of St Paul’s rather than signifying the labour involved.

Back to Fig. 26 there are fewer boats in Scott’s composition, all of which are carefully ordered shown as working boats lined up in a diagonal to the spire of the water tower, omitting the dome of St Pauls which features so prominently in Canaletto, thus foregrounding the commercial nature of the river. The figures of the swimmer and the two labourers silhouetted against the sky add everyday interest. The Scott painting has a play of light and shade absent from the polished canvases of Canaletto and the closer viewpoint emphatically points to engineering prowess rather than detail of scaffolding. The lowering billowing cloud above the bridge which lightens as it moves towards the skyline smattered with grey smoke adds detail to the drama. By throwing a stronger light on the right side Scott provides a deeper recess to the central shadow emphasising the texture of the wood. The Scott painting shows a huge sensitivity for displaying physicality, emphasising the difference between stones.

Scott’s vision was grounded in the fact that he knew the river was a tidal river with all the plays of light and shade which that involved, unlike the uniform Mediterranean light enjoyed by Canaletto Scott therefore used a perspective given by Canaletto but gave it a specifically London twist. Just before leaving Westminster Bridge I will show you a Daniel Turner painting, c.1801 of Westminster Bridge (Fig.27) to demonstrate the influence of this view through the arch of the bridge. William Marlow and the City The artist who may best be described as the heir of Canaletto’s legacy who expressed London subjects in an effortless evocation of compositional order and with a clarity of depiction redolent of Canaletto’s paintings was William Marlow (1740-1813). Marlow had been apprenticed to Samuel Scott, and probably studied at St Martin’s Lane Academy. He exhibited regularly at the Society of Artists from 1762, then at the Society of Free Artists and the Royal Academy before travelling to Italy and is recorded as visiting Rome in 1766.

Marlow has been described as carrying on where Canaletto left off as the principal painter of the new building developments and engineering projects of London. While this downplays his own experiences and travels in Italy it is certainly the case that Marlow actively sought to promote the capital as a place for civic idealism. But Marlow, while concentrating on the river, shows a progression from the preoccupations of the earlier artists in that he turned from Westminster and Westminster Bridge to focus on the City of London. These ovals of 1775-6 at the Government Art Collection reference the pre-eminence of the Somerset House view in capturing the length of the River looking up and downstream (Figs. 28 and 29). Marlow however did have a new bridge to paint, Blackfriars which opened in 1769. (Fig.30) painting it at least five times. The view is from the south bank opposite Temple Gardens with the north end of the bridge marked by a magnificent sweep of steps down to quay level and the buildings are viewed through the arch, a device used by Canaletto.

The landscape of London, commercial, historic, crowded, exotic, in flux is seen in Marlow’s Fresh Wharf, 1762, (Fig. 31) Museum of London which was the most westerly of the legal quays. They derive their name from an Act of 1558 which restricted trade to quays located between the Tower and London Bridge, where matters could be overseen by officials of the Custom House. Marlow here is capturing life on the river. The proximity of this quayside to Covent Garden Market is signified by the figure of the Levant merchant and the olive oil jar. Barrels and bales of merchandise are being checked. The painting can be dated by reference to the structures in it, such as St Magnus the Martyr Church in Lower Thames Street.

It suffered a fire in 1760 meaning the roof had to be replaced and it also was reconfigured in 1762 when new church vestries were built to the south and the aisles were shortened in order to allow a new pavement to pass under the church when the road from London Bridge was widened- work which was completed in June 1763.Scaffolding on the side of the tower can be seen in the painting indicating the work has started but not yet finished. London Bridge is depicted without any shops or buildings, all were removed by 1762 following concerns over congestion and overloading so we can place the dating to a quite specific period in middle 1762. Fresh Wharf caught the essence of London, a London powered by the engine of trade fuelled by imports delivered along the Thames, a constantly changing aspect attested by incessant building work and a historic site where civic notices were read out to Londoners informing them of important news. Marlow, therefore, differed turned his gaze to the City rather than Westminster, thus differing from Canaletto.

Canaletto produced only one major oil of St Paul’s (1754 Yale Center) (Fig.32) whereas Marlow produced works like View of Cheapside, Poultry Street (Fig.33) and View of Ludgate Hill (Fig.34) and this fantasy Capriccio: St Paul’s and a Venetian Canal, c.1795 (Fig.35). Here the Grand Canal of Venice flows up Ludgate Hill which is lined with houses with open shutters, washing hanging out to dry and ornate open balconies- none of which would be likely in North Europe. The Church of St Martin 1677-84 does not obscure St Paul’s as it would have done in actuality and the figures appear to pay tribute to the spiritual authority of St Paul’s. Blue and white flags line the route and much tonal contrast in the colours of the house and canal. Detailed viewing results in an increasingly claustrophobic atmosphere as the steps in the foreground lead nowhere, the boats prevent a clear passageway, the ropes act as a barrier and there is no obvious way around St Paul’s.

The dark shadows of the still water suggest Venetian decay dirt and decline rather than the active life of London shown in View of Ludgate Street and the atmosphere is one of disjuncture and fragmentation. Marlow here has fused two cities, using the illusionistic painting techniques favoured by Canaletto and highlighting the very different characters of London and Venice. Marlow’s masterpiece may however lie in his depiction of the Adelphi Terrace on the River (Fig.36) held at the Museum of London which has a definite reference to Canaletto. This was a popular view and it relates to the very first set of views from Somerset House described earlier. Canaletto had also focused on this section of the river. In The Thames at Westminster, c. 1750, National Trust (Fig.37) shows the old York Water Gate and the York Buildings Waterworks Company’s water tower in the foreground looking towards Westminster Bridge. It was before the building of the Adelphi Terrace.

Canaletto may have been working from Scott's first version of it, painted c.1742–3.This is A View of the Thames with the York Buildings Water Tower, (Fig.38) after Samuel Scott, at Tate. By the 1770s the focus of interest was the new building, the Adelphi terrace of houses, shown in these prints, Benedetto Pastorini’s, View of the South Front of the New Building called the Adelphi, 1770 above (Fig.39) Benjamin Green’s The Buildings called the Adelphi 1772, below (Fig.39) and William Daniel’s version (Fig. 40), all Museum of London. Marlow’s London Riverfront from Westminster to the Adelphi, 1771-2 (Fig.41), was drawn from the site of the current Waterloo Bridge looking southwards towards Westminster Bridge and Westminster Abbey, the Banqueting House, Horse Guards and the York Buildings Company’s Waterworks Tower.

The Adelphi was a prestigious residential development built to be level with the Strand by the Adam Brothers who took a ninety nine year lease from the Duke of St Albans seeking to reclaim the shallow bay and erect a wharf and terrace. Conceived as a unified architectural mass with a natural splendour of size and symmetry, the Adelphi indeed attracted some celebrated figures to move into its houses but the venture proved to be a financial disaster. The level of the wharf was built too feet too low so it was not possible to rent out the vaults. Also fashionable society had moved out as the river became more cluttered, congested and dirty. Marlow’s painting captures the contrast between the airy structure of this classical building and the labour required to build it by the rubble is shown piled up on the jetty waiting for disposal. The commercial activity is also highlighted by the unloading of coal from the barges on the right. So Canaletto’s arrival sparked a major reassessment of how London was perceived and how it perceived itself. Of his 48 English subjects 35 are of London. Artists working in London before his arrival were compelled to take note and to refine their existing techniques, viewpoints, compositions and styles.

This was aligned to the increasing confidence in the achievements of urban development and how to portray them. As London grew it became for artists a topographical grammar, in which images of churches, aristocratic residences, government, civic and trade buildings and bridges were all produced for orientation, promotion, souvenir. London was viewed as expanding in concentric circles rather than linear horizons. After Canaletto left in 1756 a set of painters continued to innovate in their work. Turner’s first oil painting of Venice (Fig. 41) in 1833 was called Ducal Palace and Bridge of Sighs, Canaletto painting, held at Tate. Here we see an artist, Canaletto, in operatic costume standing on a plank in the water in front of a huge gilt framed canvas on an easel in front of what is an inaccurately drawn Molo.

The Athenaeum, 11 May, 1833 thought that Turner had superceded Canaletto, describing Turner's picture as ‘more his own that he seems aware of: he imagines he has painted it in the Canaletti style: the style is his, and worth Canaletti's ten times over.’ The imprint of Canaletto was instrumental in ensuring that London was viewed as an Imperial capital, with links to European cities, carrying on a painterly tradition of the Italian Renaissance, celebrating, light, water, exceptional building and historic tradition and the patronage of an English elite broadening its horizons to embrace the continent. The London based artists took up the challenge of the Italian visitor and created their own grounded views which have endured and delighted us until today, colourful, innovative, affluent, conscious of London’s past but prepared to embrace its messy and disorderly present and determined to create an image of power and prestige for the future. © Dr Pat Hardy, 2016

Question: Give a year in the life of Canaletto.
Answer: 1697-1768