Francesco Guardi was an eighteenth-century Venetian painter, best known as the most popular view painter of his city after Canaletto. He was born in Venice on 5th October 1712, a member of an artisanal family of artists who worked together in the family workshop, where he was painted in the same style as his brothers, in religious and figure work. Only in his later career, after his brother Gian Antonio died in 1760, did he concentrate on vedute (views of Venice) and capricci (imaginary scenes mixing real and invented architecture). He was different to Canaletto in style. Canaletto was more interested in topographical accuracy while Guardi employed rapid, flickering strokes in order to capture shimmering light, water, and atmosphere. He was never rich nor well known in his lifetime and died in Venice on 1 January 1793 at the age of eighty. His posthumous reputation was enhanced by his loose, impressionistic treatment, which was popular with nineteenth-century admirers. His paintings are found in important collections such as the Uffizi, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, the Parisic National IIM, the Prado, the Rijksmuseum and the London National.
Early Life
It was family that had a greater influence on Guardi’s early life than any one teacher. He was born in 1712 in Venice, the son of a family of painters, reputed as being descended from an ancient family of Trentino. His father, Domenico, had a workshop until his death in 1716 when Francesco was a young boy. His elder brother, Gian Antonio, then took over the leadership of the studio and Francesco was apprenticed there with his brother Nicolò, where he and his brother worked on commissions of all types. The brothers appear to have been working together there by 1731, according to Britannica. The family was also closely related to the outside world, as his sister Cecilia was married in 1719 to Giambattista Tiepolo. The connection between Guardi and this painter would bring the Guardi family into contact with one of the most prolific painters in Europe, and the Guardi’s bright, colourful figures may have been inspired by Tiepolo. He is reportedly further trained about 1735 with Michele Marieschi, a view painter, but his first signed painting was not a view but a devotional canvas. The whole programme is a very long apprenticeship. Francesco’s personality remained largely under the radar in the family studio, says Art UK, and he continued to work for others beyond the age of 40. The painter we admire for his wonderful views of the lagoon was therefore a reliable ally, and his own style came late in life.
Signature Works
The reputation of Guardi is based on his opinions on Venice and his capricci, and his manipulation of paint is their distinguishing factor. The family workshop produced religious works (including the signed Saint Adoring the Eucharist), but his fame is due to the lagoon and city scenes he created in his later years. In paintings such as San Cristoforo, San Michele and Murano, Seen from the Fondamenta Nuove and The Lagoon with Boats, Gondolas, and Rafts, the open water and remote islands are rendered as fields of softly broken colour. His dazzling brushwork and delight in the glittering effect of Venetian light on water, as in its picture of gondoliers in carnival costumes crossing the lagoon under a canopy, are highlighted by the National Gallery. His capricci are more inventive. Once, in one painting, he repeated the image of a ruined classical arch on a lagoon island, flanked by two men working in the digging ditch, an example that can be found at the National Gallery. Even in his portrayal of the Venetian Arsenal, symbol of the Republic’s naval supremacy, he is capable of that same vibrant touch. Some of his more subdued works, like this view of the Venetian Lagoon with the Tower of Malghera, which dates from the late 1770s, are sometimes referred to as his most tranquil. If the works are seen together they demonstrate an artist more concerned with mood than with city stone-by-stone.
Inspiration
Guardi’s style developed from a number of interwoven influences and he moulded them all. The most obvious influence on his work was Canaletto. According to Britannica, his original thoughts appear to have been stimulated by Canaletto’s work thirty years earlier and as Canaletto’s years passed, the market for views was left to more youthful artists. Luca Carlevaris is another source added by Virtual Uffizi, an earlier view painter. The rich colours and dynamic figures of Gian Antonio’s figure paintings and the Tiepolo tie seemed to have inspired the abundant color and movement in his small groups in the foreground. Then Guardi left all of them. He followed Canaletto in the production of views and, early in his career, acquired a freer approach to the use of paint, preferring the brilliant play of Venetian light to the faithful description of architecture. As well as the artist, the setting was important. The subject of his painting was the lagoon of Venice, a place where the water always changes color, and the horizon line is often blurred.The lagoon of Venice was a subject that played with his rapid, suggestive brushstrokes. He was also active in a market dominated by wealthy visitors purchasing views as souvenirs, thus ensuring a regular supply of city scenes. The capricci gave him the freedom to indulge his imagination in the creation of ruins, Venetian buildings and invented structures. The market’s needs and his own restless touch brought him to a style which made Venice less a place where what actually happens could be recorded than lived and shimmering.
Awards and Recognition
It is interesting to note that a large portion of the recognition was earned late or posthumously since Guardi’s career actually began in the 1730s. I did not find any information on large scale formal awards. Rather his standing is revealed in institutional achievements and in the posthumous reputation. He was possibly introduced to the Venetian Academy by Tiepolo, as his brother became a member in 1756, but was only elected in 1784, when he was around seventy-one, while his nephew Giandomenico Tiepolo was at the helm. But he was not a success in the world in Art UK’s estimation. He did not attract foreign visitors like Canaletto did and died in poverty. The significant alteration occurred during the next century. By the 19th century, the French Impressionists were impressed by his use of colour and his painterly style, elevating his reputation above even his own, as Artnet reports. This latter reverence can be seen in the diversity of museums that have his paintings in their collection, such as the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery in London, the Prado, the Rijksmuseum and the Uffizi. The studio was also continued through his son, Giacomo Guardi (1764–1835), who inherited the studio and created numerous views of Venetian cityscapes, primarily drawings. His recognition then can only be understood as a gradual post-mortem elevation of his status, not a career of public awards.