dp canaletto anglais - copie - Musée Maillol
dp canaletto anglais - copie - Musée Maillol
dp canaletto anglais - copie - Musée Maillol
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3- EXTRACTS FROM THE CATALOGUE<br />
• THE VENICE SKETCHBOOK<br />
by Annalisa Perissa Torrini, director of the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings of the Accademia Gallery,<br />
Venice<br />
The extraordinary sketchbook of Canaletto’s drawings, unique in the history of 18 th -century Venetian<br />
art, has been in the keeping of the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings of the Accademia Gallery in Venice<br />
since 1949. It was a donation by Don Guido Gagnola, from the village of Gazzada Schianno in the<br />
Varese region of Lombardy, who said he had received it from his father. His father had owned it since<br />
1895 but didn’t know where it had come from 1 .<br />
This precious volume, already bound at the time, was authenticated in August 1840 by Giuseppe<br />
Borsato, who unfortunately was to put his heavy stamp on every page.<br />
Not long after the sketchbook entered the Accademia collections, Vittorio Moschini 2 published two<br />
articles about it, and a facsimile edition was produced by Terisio Pignatti in 1958, then by Giovanna<br />
Nepi Scirè in 1997 3 . It has only been on public display in London in 1990, and in Venice in 1982, 1995<br />
and 1999. The critical value of this jewel of the art of drawing – important well beyond its 18 th -century<br />
context – is far greater than its artistic merit. Indeed it is hardly mentioned in the numerous<br />
monographs and catalogues dedicated to the work of Canaletto, in which the sketches it contains are<br />
treated as just part of the body of his some 500 drawings.<br />
The sketches in this book are very precise and made with great care. They are preparatory drawings<br />
representing the immediacy of a view, which will then be transformed in the painter’s mind when he<br />
makes the canvases that are supposed to reproduce reality. In this respect they show the process of<br />
Canaletto’s thinking, from the first idea to its development on paper, then on to the finished canvas.<br />
The drawings are annotated with information and observations that he will use when he turns the<br />
sketch into a painting. They reveal the way he in which he develops his works, which share a<br />
distinctive perspective based on a gradual reduction in the planes, with shortened silhouettes on the<br />
horizon. Based on topographical precision, Canaletto’s creative intelligence manages to combine all<br />
the different elements very convincingly. His notes include the names of palaces and shops,<br />
indications of a ferry or a gondola repair workshop, or he gives the exact number of windows or<br />
columns. He doesn’t forget to note down the colours – brown, white, yellow, black, off-white, red,<br />
ochre or yellow ochre – indicating whether their tones are light or dark. He also indicates sizes:<br />
“wider”, “a bit longer”, “narrower”, “correct”. Materials, too, are mentioned – lead, stone, brick, wood<br />
– and sites and even signs. When a panorama can’t be kept to one page, he divides it into sections<br />
that are developed on different pages, which he calls “strips”: “first strip on left”, or “first strip on<br />
1 Cf. G. Nepi Scirè, Accademia Galleries. History of the Drawings collections Milan, 1982, p. 17-18, 24, note 186. Letters<br />
from 28 February and 15 May 1949 are conserved in the Archive of the Superintendence, Accademia Galleries, 2, Dons et<br />
legs 118/33, Book of the sketches of Canaletto donated by Don Guido Gagnola di Gaza from Schianto (Varese).<br />
2 A book of Canaletto sketches donated to the Accademia Galleries in Venice, in “Bollettino d’Arte”, 1949, p. 279, and the<br />
book of Canaletto sketches to the Venetian Galleries, in “Arte Veneta”, 1950, p. 57-75.<br />
3 T. Pignatti, The Notebook of Canaletto Sketches at the Venice Galleries, 1958; G. Nepi Scirè, Canaletto’s Notebook,<br />
Venice, 1997; Canaletto. The Venetian Notebook, edited by A. Perissa Torrini, Venice, 2012.<br />
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