The tower of Marghera

WALL LABEL: A Beautiful Line: Italian prints from Mantegna to Piranesi, 2012

Canaletto’s city views combine observed reality with fantasy. This print is of an actual fifteenth-century fortification on the edge of a lagoon just outside Venice. By contrast The portico with a lantern presents an imaginary scene – an atmospheric mood piece rather than an actual place.

Canaletto’s ability to describe the play of light on buildings and water in his prints is unparalleled in Venetian printmaking in the eighteenth century. Canaletto’s etching needle’s responsive, rhythmic, yet controlled line covers the entire surface of his images and, at close range, creates a dazzling optical effect. In the portico with a lantern the varying density of the strokes creates the illusion of the movement of air, as one sees it in the shimmering heat of a summer’s day.

Maria Zagala, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs