London: Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh
| Support Type: | Canvas |
| Paint Type: | Oil Paint |
| Current Location: | The National Gallery, London, United Kingdom. |
London: The Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh by Canaletto is a painting of, on the surface, an attractive eighteenth-century crowd. London’s Ranelagh Gardens, home of the famous Rotunda, was once among the capital’s finest meeting spots where you came to perform or at least be observed. But it seems to be a painting that asks for calm contemplation. I am struck by the disparity between the huge, dramatic building and the miniature individuals. They are swallowed by the sheer space and that huge dome is to remind us of how we are merely flotsam, whether celebrated, beautiful or successful, within the vast expanse of history and time. The Rotunda looks like a secular church. People convene to adore society, gossip, dance and song, not God. Canaletto has captured that human truism, we need company for a sense of importance; yet there is a silent despair here too. Hundreds congregate in one space, yet each carries a world alone inside him, imperceptible to any other eye. The painting for me works as a philosophical consideration of civil society. It represents a magnificent building constructed for some other purpose apart from warmth to keep the frail body alive – to ward off isolation, by some means or another. Therefore this edifice is to my eye not simply an architectural master work but also as a monument to that desire that man has to cohere. The painting, beneath all the decorative flourish asks the very same question as it would today, in a space, with all of these people: are we seeking spectacle, or connection?