“Veduta”, from the Italian for “view” is a subset of landscape
painting and graphics in which the artist creates a reasonably
accurate, usually large and detailed representation of a
specific place. Most often the view is of a city that is remote
and exotic to the intended audience for the works. The genre
reached a pinnacle of sorts in the 18th century, particularly in
views of the astonishing and magical city of Venice as portrayed
by Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto, and
Francesco Guardi, whose works are less well known to
contemporary audiences, but are also stunning. These two masters
of Venice are featured in a new exhibition by that name,
Canaletto — Guardi: The two masters of Venice, at the
Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris (my links are to the English
language versions of the sites). The exhibition runs to 14
January 2013. There is a dedicated website for the exhibition
that includes six sections on the exhibition’s themes, each of
which features several images that may be clicked on