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Distributed for Hirmer Publishers

Canaletto

Bernardo Bellotto Paints Europe

In 1761, Bernardo Bellotto painted his famous panorama of Munich, signing the painting “Canaletto”—as he signed many of his paintings—in tribute to his uncle and teacher Giovanni Antonio Canal. In addition to the famous panorama, Bellotto completed over the course of several months two stunning palace views for the Duke of Bavaria, Maximilian III Joseph.

Placing Bellotto’s Munich paintings within the artist’s broader body of work, this well-illustrated book highlights the Italian painter and printmaker’s capacity to create paintings of European cities that are both remarkably realistic and compositionally idealistic. Depicting Dresden, Vienna, Turin, and Warsaw, the paintings demonstrate an elaborate attention to architectural and natural detail and a sophisticated understanding of the specific quality of light in each place. By juxtaposing the paintings with Bellotto’s preparatory sketches, the book also sheds light on his complicated process, which is thought to have included the use of the popular optical aid of that time, the camera obscura. Rounding out the book is a contemporary artistic reevaluation of the paintings through the medium of photography.

Bringing together many well-known works by the Venetian vedute with a trove of paintings rarely seen, including a series of highly idealized architectural depictions, the book illustrates his critical contribution to this important European tradition.

360 pages | 240 color plates | 11 x 9 | © 2015

Art: European Art

Biography and Letters


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Reviews

“Recommended. . . . The book is both scholarly and accessible, with excellent quality color illustrations, and introduces the artist and European view painting of the eighteenth century.”

Choice

Table of Contents

Greetings
Elio Menzione
 
Foreword
Klaus Shrenk
 
Essays
A Lot of Art for a Lot of Truth: How the Vedutista Looks the City in the Face
Andreas Schumacher
 
Made for the Dining Room, the Antechamber, and the Gallery
Commissioners and Functions of Bellotto’s Vedute
Julia Thoma
 
Bernardo Bellotto as Landscape Painter
Bozena Anna Kowalcyzk
 
The Seduction of the Gaze
Architectural Fantasies of the 1760s
Andrea Gottdang
 
Bernardo Bellotto, called Canaletto
A Venetian Look at Central Europe
Theresa Wagener
 
Biography
Teresa Wagener
 
Catalogue
Andreas Gottdang, Bozena Anna Kowalcyk, Andreas Schumacher, Julia Thoma, Theresa Wagener
 
The Views in Munich
City and Palace—Duty and Leisure
Bellotto’s Works for the Munich Residenz in the Context of Ceremonial and Flattery
Christian Quaeitzsch
 
Geodetic Analysis of the View of Munich
Wolfgang Wiedermann
 
Munich from the East
Identification of the Buildings Depicted
 
Painting Technique and Restoration of the City View
Wolf Zech
 
Bellotto Portrays Nymphenburg
The Prince and his Court in the Summer Palace
Peter O. Kruckmann
 
The Palace Views as Architectural History
Ernst Gotz
 
Vanishing Point and Grid of Threads
Nymphenburg Palace from the Park—The Construction of the Picture
Bettina Schwabe
 
Literature
Photo Credits
 

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