It’s incredibly difficult to paint the sensation of staring at the sky for a long time but Canaletto captured it in this piece. Space, thoughts, the movement and transformation of thoughts, space.
Almost in the middle of the canvas or a little left of Campanile di San Marco is a beautifully painted storm in the distance. The sheets of rain are painted on a diagonal that is echoed all through out the painting from the flags to the oars to the masts of the ships. This is a visual device to weave together the whole canvas but I also see it as an almost “As above so below” principle.
Although the seductive stormy blue clouds take up two thirds of the sky they are starting to be pushed to the right by a strong wind from the left. This clear sky pocket on the left provides for a nice resting place for the eye but also brings in a strong light and wind source that animates the whole image.
The longer I look at this piece the more I see and feel the wind from the left. I hear the rippling of the waves and the water slapping against the boats. I even start to pay more attention to the sensations of the air on the left side of my face.
Because of this very artfully deployed device of wind and because the majority of the canvas represents obviously transient and mobile things, Air, Water and Boats, Canaletto allows me to view a solid still painting as one that carries the promise of movement. It’s a window for day dreaming. I can flash in between the map he gives of the view and the films my mind creates through active imagination.
The canvas is around 8 ft wide so where I’m sitting in the gallery now in relation to the scene on the canvas is realistically to scale. This scale in relation to my body and perception creates a visceral experience of being there. But it’s not only that, Canaletto has positioned the viewer right on the corner of the square right outside San Giorgio il Maggiore. After studying the Tintoretto’s in this church I have stood in this exact same location many times, gazing across the canal just like in this piece. As I look into this painting I am equally replaying all of the memories I experienced in this same location, moving back and forth just like the boats on the waves.
Because the figures are so nondescript I take them as a symbol of human presence which I can swap out for whatever personalities arise in my mind. The anatomy of the faces are an almost mechanical formula of dots and dabs building from dark to light climaxing in the lightest light as the final top layer. From afar they read as figures but up close they are just compounded parts with no personality. They are as insubstantial as my day dreams.
The figures are empty just like my thoughts. I watch them come and go like the gondolas on the canal. What remains is the space that inhabits the whole and animates the whole just like the sky moving from left to right.
