Francesco Guardi | |
|---|---|
 Francesco Guardi portrayed byPietro Longhi (1764) | |
| Born | (1712-10-05)5 October 1712 Venice,Republic of Venice (now Italy) |
| Died | 1 January 1793(1793-01-01) (aged 80) Venice, Republic of Venice |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Venetian School |
Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (Italian pronunciation:[franˈtʃeskoˈgwardi]; 5 October 1712 – 1 January 1793) was an Italian painter, nobleman, and a member of theVenetian School. He is considered to be among the last practitioners, along with his brothers, of the classic Venetian school of painting.
In the early part of his career he collaborated with his older brotherGian Antonio in the production of religious paintings. After Gian Antonio's death in 1760, Francesco concentrated onvedute. The earliest of these show the influence ofCanaletto, but he gradually adopted a looser style characterized by spirited brush-strokes and freely imagined architecture.
Francesco Guardi was born in Venice into a family of nobility fromTrentino. His father Domenico (born in 1678) and his brothers Niccolò and Gian Antonio were also painters, later inheriting the family workshop after the father's death in 1716. They probably all contributed as a team to some of the larger commissions later attributed to Francesco. His sister Maria Cecilia married the pre-eminent Veneto-European painter of his epoch,Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.
In 1735, Guardi moved to the workshop ofMichele Marieschi, where he remained until 1743. His first certain works are from 1738, for a parish atVigo d'Anuania, inTrentino. In this period he worked alongside his older brother, Gian Antonio. The first work signed by Francesco is aSaint Adoring the Eucharist (c. 1739).
His works in this period included both landscapes and figure compositions. His early vedute show influence both fromCanaletto andLuca Carlevarijs. On 15 February 1757, he married Maria Mattea Pagani, the daughter of painterMatteo Pagani. In 1760 his brother Gian Antonio died and his first son, Vincenzo, was born. His second son,Giacomo, was born in 1764.
In 1763 he worked inMurano, in the church ofSan Pietro Martire, finishing aMiracle of a Dominican Saint clearly influenced byAlessandro Magnasco in its quasi-expressionistic style.
Francesco Guardi's most important later works include theDoge's Feasts, a series of twelve canvases celebrating the ceremonies held in 1763 for the election of DogeAlvise IV Mocenigo. In his later years, Canaletto's influence on his art diminished, as shown by thePiazzetta in theCa' d'Oro of Venice. In circa 1778, he painted the severeHoly Trinity Appearing to Sts. Peter and Paul in the parish church ofRoncegno.
In 1782, Guardi was commissioned by the Venetian government six canvases to celebrate the visit of the Russian Grand Dukes to the city, of which only two remain, and two others for that ofPope Pius VI. On September 12 of that year, he was admitted to theFine Art Academy of Venice.
A stronger attention to colours is present in late works such as theConcerto of 80 Orphans of 1782, now inMunich, and in theFaçade of Palace with Staircase in theAccademia Carrara ofBergamo.
Guardi died at Campiello de la Madona inCannaregio (Venice) in 1793.
Among all the paintings attributed to either Francesco and his brother Gian Antonio Guardi, the most praised work is not a landscape, but instead the airysfumatoStory of Tobit painted for the organ loft in the smallChiesa dell'Angelo San Raffaele. To quote from the Web Gallery of Art:
Perspective, organized aerial space, thePalladian solidity of Tiepolo... are exchanged for a personal style of coloured handwriting – now brilliantly calligraphic, and now brilliantly cloudy.[1]
Guardi's painterly style is known aspittura di tocco (of touch) for its small dotting and spirited brush-strokes. This looser style of painting had been used byGiovanni Piazzetta andSebastiano Ricci, and recalls, in some religious themes, the sweetened sfumato ofBarocci's Bolognese style. In this he differs from the more linear and architecturally accurate style of Canaletto's painting. This style, a century later, would make Guardi's works highly prized by theFrench Impressionists.
Canaletto, as a vedutista, concentrated on glamorous urban architecture erected by the Serene Republic; on the other hand, in Guardi, the buildings often appear to be melting and sinking into a murky lagoon.[2][3] Canaletto's canvases often have intricate linear and brilliant details, and depict Venice in sunny daylight. Guardi paints clouded skies above a city at dusk. These contrasts, however, simplify the facts, since Canaletto often painted the drab communal life and neighborhoods (creating in them some epic artistic qualities), while Guardi did not avoid sometimes painting the ceremonies of Ducal Venice.[4] Ultimately, Guardi's paintings evoke the onset of the dissipation. The citizenry has shrunken to an impotent lilliputian crowd of "rubber-neckers", unable to rescue the crumbling Republic, as for example in theFire in the Oil Depot in San Marcuola.[5] It was fitting depiction of the rapidly declining empire, which had declined, in Napoleon's assessment, into a "drawing room of Europe" peopled with casinos, carnivals, and courtesans for hire.
_Fire_in_the_oil_warehouses_at_San_Marcuola_by_Francesco_Guardi_-_Gallerie_Accademia.jpg)
![Lagoon Looking Towards Murano from the Fondamenta Nuova (1765-1770), Fitzwilliam Museum[6]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aFrancesco_Guardi_-_The_Lagoon_Looking_toward_Murano_from_the_Fondamenta_Nuove_-_WGA10846.jpg)
Media related toFrancesco Guardi at Wikimedia Commons
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