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Aveduta (Italian for 'view';pl.:vedute) is a highly detailed, usually large-scalepainting or, more often,print of acityscape or some other vista. The painters ofvedute are referred to asvedutisti.
Thisgenre oflandscape originated inFlanders, where artists such asPaul Bril paintedvedute as early as the 16th century. In the 17th century, Dutch painters made a specialty of detailed and accurate recognizable city and landscapes that appealed to the sense of local pride of the wealthy Dutch middle class. An archetypal example isJohannes Vermeer'sView of Delft. TheGhent architect, draughtsman and engraverLieven Cruyl (1640–1720) contributed to the development of thevedute during his residence in Rome in the late 17th century. Cruyl's drawings reproduce the topographical aspects of the urban landscape.[1]
As the itinerary of theGrand Tour became somewhat standardized,vedute of familiar scenes like theRoman Forum or theGrand Canal recalled early ventures to the Continent for aristocratic Englishmen. By the mid-18th century,Venice became renowned as the centre of thevedutisti. The genre was pioneered byLuca Carlevarijs, and its greatest practitioners belonged to the Canal andGuardi families of Venice. Some of them went to work as painters in major capitals of Europe, e.g.,Canaletto inLondon and his nephewBernardo Bellotto inDresden andWarsaw.
In other parts of 18th-century Italy, idiosyncratic varieties of the genre evolved.Giovanni Paolo Pannini was the firstveduta artist to concentrate on paintingruins. The Dutch painterGaspar van Wittel (who worked in Rome, where he was known as Vanvitelli) and others paintedveduta esatta, i.e. exactvedute, which was a topographically accurate depiction of a cityscape or monument and in which the human and animal figures played a secondary role.[2] His collaborators includedHendrik Frans van Lint, who would become one of the leadingvedute painters in the first half of the 18th century.[3] Through his more realistic representation in thevedute he executed at the end of the 17th century and beginning of the 18th century, the Flemish painterJan Frans van Bloemen anticipated developments during the 18th century, when there was a shift away from the classically oriented Roman landscapes of Frenchvedute painters in Rome such asGaspard Dughet.[4]
In later developments of thevedute, Pannini'sveduta morphed into the scenes partly or completely imaginary elements, known ascapricci andvedute ideate orveduta di fantasia.[2]Giambattista Piranesi was the foremost master ofvedute ideateetchings. His topographical series,Vedute di Roma, went through many printings.
In the later 19th century, more personal "impressions" of cityscapes replaced the desire for topographical accuracy, which was satisfied instead by painted, and later photographed,panoramas. There was a sizeable community of émigré artists active in Venice, such asAntonietta Brandeis, the Spanish paintersMartín Rico y Ortega,Mariano Fortuny,Antonio Reyna Manescau andRafael Senet and the Peruvian painterFederico del Campo. These artists responded to the large international market for their city views of Venice, and they made such big names for themselves through this genre that they painted nothing but Italian views.
Demand for Federico del Campo's views, particularly from English tourists, was so strong that he painted several views multiple times,[5] and the same can be said of Reyna Manescau, who repeated the same urban landscapes in many occasions with minimal variations.[6]
Media related toVeduta at Wikimedia Commons
