This is a celebrated view, one that has teased and inspired generations of artists since the 18th century. It shows the mouth of the Grand Canal with Santa Maria della Salute to your left and the Ducal Palace to your right; the fact that it must always be captured in a moving vessel, under sail or vaporetto is a nice conceit. Whistler I think gives a my favourite rendition, both enigmatic and precise.

venice-view-st-marks-salute

As an aside, it is a wonderful and terrifying thing to understand that the San Marco Campanile is an Edwardian construct, replacing the renaissance tower that collapsed in 1912. Ruskin gives full justice to the perfection of the Byzantine miracle yet the tower is so- perfect, in form, mass and colour. Without it, the composition would be perhaps less complete.

Acrylic on board, 30x20cm
BUY