Bernardo Bellotto

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Bernardo Bellotto , known as Canaletto (* May 20, 1722 , according to other sources January 30, 1721 in Venice , † October 17, 1780 in Warsaw ), was a Venetian painter who was famous for his realistic vedute of European cities, especially Dresden in addition to Italian cities , Vienna and Warsaw.

Bernardo Bellotto: Self-portrait in Venetian aristocratic costume (excerpt from the ideal vedute with self-portrait from 1765; Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe )

Youth and education

Bernardo Francesco Paolo Ernesto Bellotto was born on May 20, 1722 in Venice as the son of the land manager Lorenzo Antonio and the Fiorenza Domenica. Canal was born the fourth of five children. The maternal grandfather and his brother were already theater painters (stage designers), the mother's brother was the then famous Venetian vedute painter Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697–1768), known as Canaletto .

The talent of the young Bernardo was discovered early by his uncle, and at the age of 14 he joined the elder Canaletto's workshop in 1736. In 1738 he became a member of the painters' guild , this is probably Bellotto's formal independence. Little is known about the following years up to 1742. During this time, however, around 300 of the 564 drawings that have survived and fewer than 20 vedutas ascribed to him were created. It is extremely difficult to tell the style of uncle and nephew. A further complication is the fact that Bellotto took over the stage name Canaletto from his uncle [Canaletto was a recurring nickname of the noble da Canal family since the Middle Ages]. According to Kowalczyk, the main differences are a closer observation and reproduction of the architecture, a more dynamic treatment of sky and water and stronger light-shadow contrasts in Bellotto.

Before his wedding to Maria Elisabetta Pizzorno on November 5, 1741, Bellotto traveled with his uncle Giovanni Antonio Canal through the surroundings of Venice, along the Riviera del Brenta and to Padua . The drawings created on this art trip later served the painter as models for his capricci , in contrast to which only one painting was created as a result of the trip.

Venetian capriccio with a view of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, around 1740

In the spring of 1742, the newly wed Bellotto went alone via Florence , Lucca and Livorno to Rome , where he did not arrive until early summer. On this trip, Bellotto had the first opportunity to see and draw the world with his own eyes - without the influence of his uncle. Three pairs of pictures were taken in Florence, in Lucca only one of presumably five planned views of the city. In Rome he made dozens of drawings in just two months (he was back in Venice in July), which he only turned into 16 views of Rome at the end of 1742 and 1743. With these views Bellotto had finally stepped out of the shadow of his uncle and freed himself from his influence.

Italian period

Bellotto spent the months from his return from Rome until the end of 1743 with the preparation of the 16 views of Rome. It was not until 1744 that he started traveling again. Presumably he continued on short trips from Venice in the spring and summer months. During this time around 20 vedutas from Lombardy , Piedmont and Verona as well as about as many capricci were created .

Bernardo Bellotto, Verona seen upstream from the Neue Brücke (detail), 1746/48; Dresden old masters

Bellotto's painting technique was enormously enriched in this short time: cool color tones, strong light-shadow contrasts, a picture composition determined by the diagonal and an unnaturally deep horizon. The painter presents us with a stage on which city life is now "played". The rural landscape also appeared as a new subject. While with his uncle Canaletto the city "cleaned up", i. H. was freed from everything unsightly in order to create an ideal image, Bellotto included daily, everyday life in his pictures. An approach that points to the next century rather than to the past. With increasing technical security, Bellotto also enlarged the image format.

In 1745 Bellotto received from Charles Emanuel III. , Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia , commissioned two vedute of Turin. Although this royal client did not correspond to his uncle's circle of customers, he still signed with his artist name, which obviously still had a ring to it: “BERNARDO BELLOTTO / DT. IL CANALETTO ”. For the first time, Bellotto also included the rural landscape in the cityscape. In the Verona vedute he succeeded in depicting the individuality of this city. This is particularly evident in comparison with Veronese vedutas by other masters and becomes even clearer in his later Viennese, Dresden and Warsaw paintings.

Why Bellotto decided to turn its back on Venice in 1747 is not known. There were certainly several reasons for the move. In addition to the death of three children in four years, it was probably also the fear of being economically unsuccessful in Venice and of wasting away artistically. After April 5, 1747 Bellotto went to Dresden to negotiate the terms of his employment at the electoral court. He returned briefly to Venice again and, together with his wife, five-year-old son Lorenzo and a servant, left his hometown for good in July 1747.

First Dresden period

Dresden, in which the 25-year-old painter settled in 1747, was not only the capital of the Electorate of Saxony, but also the residence of the Polish king (as August III) in the person of Elector Friedrich August II . The elector and king was an extraordinary art connoisseur, who especially cultivated a preference for contemporary Venetian painting and was significantly supported by his first minister, Count Heinrich von Brühl . Presumably mediated by the diplomat and art connoisseur Francesco Algarotti , Bellotto was appointed court painter with an annual salary of 1750 thalers. Further signs of the high esteem were a golden tobacco tin and the adoption of the sponsorship of his four daughters, born between 1748 and 1752, by the royal couple, members of the Princely House and the Count and Countess Brühl.

During this first time in Dresden (1747–1758) Bellotto perfected the knowledge he had acquired during his training and during his travels through Italy. He supplemented it by studying Dutch art in the electoral collection and applied his accumulated skills in the preparation of several cycles of vedute on a royal commission. A main cycle of 14 views of Dresden, which is still in the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden, was created until 1754. 13 of the 14 pictures were made again in the same size for Count Brühl. In the years 1753 to 1756 he created another cycle of eleven views of the small town of Pirna , located south of Dresden on the Elbe . Eight of these were reproduced for Count Brühl.

Canaletto, as he now called himself, brought some artistic freedom to the numerous views of the city of Dresden. He painted some buildings when they were finished, even though they were actually still under construction. The panorama of the center of the city, with the buildings reflecting in the river, is exactly reproduced.

Bellotto was only able to complete five vedutas of the Königstein Fortress in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains in 1757/58 based on his own drawings from 1755/1756. In 1756 the Seven Years' War began; Pirna and Königstein were the main combat areas. Since Saxony was completely occupied by Prussian troops in the course of the war, the order situation for him was very poor. His client, August II (1733–1763), also went into exile in Warsaw. Canaletto was probably worried about payment for his work from the Königstein, because shortly after its creation he sold it to art dealers who sold them to English aristocratic families. In order to earn money, the artist was forced to go on a journey and left around the turn of the year 1758/1759.

In 2014, two of the five vedutas of the Königstein Fortress returned to the place of origin in Germany for the first time. From April 11th to November 2nd of that year they were on loan from the Manchester City Galleries in a special exhibition on the mountain fortress. They are the two interior views of the fortress plateau. They convey a detailed picture of everyday life on the Königstein.

Intermezzo: Vienna and Munich

Bernardo Bellotto: Vienna, seen from the Belvedere , 1759–1760, Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna - ( Canaletto view )
Bernardo Bellotto: The imperial pleasure palace Schönbrunn, courtyard side , 1759–1760, Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna

On December 5, 1758, a pass to Bayreuth was issued for Bernardo Bellotto. He probably went there on the recommendation of the architect and set designer Giuseppe Galli da Bibiena , who had built the Bayreuth Theater as early as 1747–1748 and who met the Bellotto in Dresden from 1748–1754. Attempts to find work there were apparently unsuccessful, as the artist came to Vienna in January 1759. Here Bellotto initially worked for two nobles, Prince Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Riedberg and Prince Joseph Wenzel von Liechtenstein . For the first time, he integrated detailed and sophisticated portraits of the client into the vedute of her garden palace .

Presumably six Viennese urban interiors , conceived as counterparts , were created for the imperial court , plus two views of Schönbrunn Palace and Park, a panorama of the city from the Belvedere and four views of Hof Palace (a total of 13 images). Presumably they served as fittings in a room in an imperial palace, but in 1781 they were hung in the castle of the then Hungarian capital in Pressburg . Since Bellotto only stayed in Vienna for a little more than two years, he needed an average of six to seven weeks for each picture created there.

In Vienna Bellotto also received news of the destruction of his house and the destruction of part of his works of art by Prussian bombardment from July 14th to 20th, 1760. His wife and daughters were unharmed, but the damage from the destruction of part of his works of art and printing plates amounted to to 50,000 thalers.

Equipped with a letter of recommendation from Maria Theresa, Bellotto moved on to Munich in January 1761 , where he met the Saxon heir to the throne Friedrich Christian of Saxony , who lived with his brother-in-law, Elector Maximilian III. Joseph of Bavaria, had sought refuge. Presumably as a gift for their hosts, the couple had two views of the summer residence at Nymphenburg Palace and a panorama of Munich painted in the electoral rooms of the Munich residence . At the end of 1761 Bellotto returned to the war-torn Dresden.

Second Dresden period

Canaletto: The ruins of the Kreuzkirche, seen from the east

When in October 1763 King August III. and Count Heinrich von Brühl died, Bellotto lost his most important advocates. The successors no longer had a preference for rococo painting. The academy that emerged from 1764 was oriented more towards the emerging classicist ideal. Although he was accepted into the academy as a professor of perspective, his salary was reduced to 600 thalers. Since he did not receive any more commissions for vedute, Bellotto switched to Capricci in 1762 after several allegories . He was familiar with this subject; he had already painted almost a dozen capricci in Italy. What is new, however, is that the architectural imagination fills the entire picture surface in an "exuberant" way. These magnificent open staircases and arcade halls are populated by the common people and the lower social classes. In addition to a vedute of Dresden, which he gave to the academy - presumably in the knowledge of the rejection that his painting style and subject would trigger in the recipient - there were also depictions of the Pirna suburb and the Kreuzkirche , which were too large in 1760 during the Seven Years War Parts had been destroyed.

Warsaw court

Bernardo Bellotto called Canaletto, Warsaw, viewed from the terrace of the Royal Castle (detail) (1773), Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe

Apparently Bellotto could no longer make ends meet in Dresden. He was looking for a new job and supposedly found it in Saint Petersburg , at the court of Tsarina Catherine II. However, he did not get there. Halfway there, he stayed at the court of the new Polish king, Stanisław II August . His taste was still influenced by the baroque style and he adored Venetian painting, he was highly educated and spoke several languages, including Italian . At his court he had gathered a whole colony of Italian artists, which suited the linguistically completely untalented Bellotto. Canaletto was not appointed court painter at the Warschauer Hof, but instead worked with other artists in the so-called "art department".

The main building tasks at the court were the modernization of the royal palace in Warsaw , plus the crown property from 1764 to 1786, as well as the reconstruction of the Ujazdów palace near Warsaw, which was privately owned by the king, from 1766 to 1771. The Ujazdów palace was a replacement residence for the duration of the construction work on the Warsaw area Castle and had to be equipped with all representative rooms. Bellotto was able to work here. According to the sources available, he furnished an entire room that was even named after him; it is unclear whether he actually painted frescoes. Bellotto also created 16 views of Rome based on etchings by Piranesi for Ujazdów as well as the first Warsaw vedute. His son Lorenzo Bellotto helped him with the Rome cycle, which is dated 1768/69, but who died in 1770. Sometimes Rome and Warsaw vedutas can be seen in connection: in direct comparison, the two should be presented as equal to each other - Venice was also often described as an altera Roma , the second Rome.

King Stanisław August was unable to complete the renovations in Ujazdów and therefore decided to concentrate on the Warsaw Royal Castle. The vedute was transferred there in 1777 and hung in the senator's anteroom, the wood paneling of which was adapted to these - already existing - paintings. In addition to the existing ones, Bellotto painted further Warsaw vedutas, some in a smaller format, so that finally 22 Bellotto paintings adorned the hall. Below is a history picture (a genre unfamiliar to Bellotto), which shows Stanisław August Poniatowski's election as Polish king , the rest are Warsaw views.

On these Warsaw vedute, Bellotto pays much more attention to the staffage than he did in Dresden. It is estimated that around 3000 people are represented in the Warsaw pictures, around half of whom are clearly identifiable in terms of their status and profession. The two versions of the election of Stanisław August and the entry of the envoy Jerzy Ossoliński into Rome in 1733 are filled with people who are nevertheless partly identifiable.

Bernardo Bellotto, called Canaletto, died unexpectedly in Warsaw on October 17th, 1780. The cause of death was a stroke ( apoplexy ).

technology

When creating a vedute, Bellotto always proceeded in a similar way. First, several small and medium-sized drawings were made with the help of a camera obscura , which were then processed into a large, final drawing. This drawing, made very precisely with a ruler, has now been squared; H. provided with a grid of lines, and with the help of these squares then enlarged on the canvas. In addition, Bellotto also made sketches of architectural details and free sketches of the staffage figures on the scale of the painting. These drawings were usually kept carefully, because if a picture should be carried out again (which often happened), he did not need the original, but could make repetitions from the drawings until the end of his life.

The pre-glued (i.e. coated with glue) canvas was first primed red with bolo veneziano , then twice more. On the finished primer he then drew a grid according to the squaring on the drawing, into which he transferred the corresponding squares of the drawing with a dark brown brushstroke. He drew some lines of composition and architectural details with a ruler, they are often still visible with the naked eye.

The shadow areas were applied with translucent paint that lets the primer shine through. The coarser parts were done with oil paint . He used tempera for fine lines . Some lines are accentuated by scratching the fresh paint. Finally, the staffage figures were applied.

Special aftermath after the Second World War

After the Second World War , large parts of Warsaw's old town were reconstructed with the help of Bellotto's Warsaw cityscapes .

Works

Major works and collection history

  • The royal Dresden cycle is now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. The second versions for Count Brühl were purchased by Catherine II for the Hermitage in 1765 and formed the first basis for their world-famous collection of paintings. Third-party versions are scattered across museums around the world. The painting Dresden from the right bank of the Elbe below the Augustus Bridge with the so-called “Canaletto view” became particularly famous . It shows the center of Dresden with the Hofkirche, the Frauenkirche and the Brühlsche Terrasse from the Neustädter Elbe bank below the Augustusbrücke.
  • The Warsaw cycle was brought to St. Petersburg after the partitions of Poland and did not return to the newly established Poland until 1922 from what was then the Soviet Union. They survived the Second World War because they had been brought to Krakow by the German occupation on the Wawel . Today they can be seen again in the reconstructed rooms of the Warsaw Castle.
  • The Vienna cycle is kept in the Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna, the early pictures have found their place in various museums.

Other works (selection)

  • Venice, Canal Grande visto da Palazzo Balbi (confiscated in Milan in September 2005)
  • Venice, Canale Grande with Santa Croce and Corpus Domini , 1738/1739 (London, The National Gallery) - AK Vienna 2005 No. 1
  • Venice, Rio dei Mendicanti with Scuola di San Marco , 1738/1739 (Venice, Gallerie dell'Accademia) - AK Vienna 2005 No. 2
  • The Grand Canal seen from Palazzo Foscari to Carità , 1739/1740 (Stockholm, National Museum)
  • The Arsenal Gate and the Campo di Arsenale ; The Piazzetta towards St. Mark's Square , 1740/1743 (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa)
  • Florence, Piazza della Signoria ; Florence, view of the Arno from the Ponte Vecchio in the direction of Santa Trinità , 1742 (Budapest, Szépmüvészeti Museum) - AK Vienna 2005 No. 3,4
  • Neustädter Markt , Dresden Picture Gallery
  • Dresden Altmarkt , Pinacoteca Gianni e Marella Agnelli, Turin
  • The market square in Pirna . 1753 or 1754, oil on canvas 134 × 238 cm, Gemäldegalerie Dresden
  • Königstein Fortress from the northwest . Between 1756 and 1758, oil on canvas 132 × 234 cm, in the collection of the Earl of Derby, Knowsley, Lancashire
  • Vienna, seen from the Belvedere . Between 1758 and 1761, Kunsthistorisches Museum
  • Jerzy Ossolinski's entry into Rome in 1633 , Wrocław, Muzeum Narodowe
  • Piazza Navona , 1767–1770, Nizhny Novgorod Art Museum

Exhibitions

literature

Web links

Commons : Bernardo Bellotto  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Bernardo Bellotto in the catalog of the Königliche Gemäldegalerie zu Dresden (1887)  - sources and full texts
Wikisource: Canaletto-Mappe, 24 views of Dresden, Pirna and Königstein after Canaletto's etchings (1895)  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Rottermund note 17
  2. ↑ Rottermund 2005, pp. 13/14
  3. ↑ Bernardo Bellotto and the reconstruction of Warsaw , accessed on June 24, 2018
  4. ↑ Reconstruction: “ideal city” instead of reconstruction instead of the original - the historical center of Warsaw. Original loyalty , p. 228; accessed on: June 24, 2018
  5. ↑ Ingeborg Wiensowski: Canaletto exhibition: Do not Look colors. In: Spiegel Online . October 12, 2010, accessed June 9, 2018 .
  6. ↑ http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/venice-canaletto-and-his-rivals
  7. ^ Musée Jacquemart-André: Canaletto - Guardi ( Memento of December 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Announcement on the exhibition , accessed on November 17, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Bellotto, Bernardo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Canaletto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1721 or May 20, 1722
PLACE OF BIRTH Venice
DATE OF DEATH October 17, 1780
Place of death Warsaw