The Marketplace at Pirna

It is a meditation on memory order and how cities last after traumas. The painting was made after a war and rebuilding. It turns the city into a kind of visual memory book. Architecture becomes a way to remember the past together. Bellotto’s way of painting is not about being really good technically but about thinking about how things last. The buildings, streets and towers he paints seem orderly and rational even though the world around them was recently destroyed. The town hall, churches and houses are shown not as separate buildings but as symbols, that the community keeps on going. They represent the political structures that have survived even when there is conflict. In this way the painting shows ideas of Enlightenment, where careful planning and geometry represent reason. The way Bellotto uses light and shadows is also important. The long shadows on the ground make it seem like time is passing. People are shown smaller compared to the high rise building, suggesting that people are fragile, compared to the big flow of history. That the people in the market seem small compared to the buildings, like cities will outlast people quietly taking in their stories and experiences. The painting also makes you wonder about what is real and what is not. Bellotto used a tool to paint very precisely but, the image is more than just a record. The city is shown in a perfect way turned into a vision of stability and pride. So the work is, between observing and creating a memory. Between the city as it was and the city as people want to remember it.