Francesco Guardi

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.

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