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Artist J.M.W. Turner, RA. The Engravings. Perhaps the most famous English Romantic landscape artist. Turner
products many engravings and was very hands-on in there progress to printings.
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Venice, the Grand Canal
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| This is another picture of Venice, giving much the same view as that entitled “Venice, from Oanal Giudecca.” It gives, however, a
nearer view of the Square of St. Mark with its two ancient columns. the Doge’s Palace, and the Campanile. It will be seen, on
comparison, that the two pictures do not entirely agree in details: that the Campanile i represented as much loftier in the one
previously given, and that the Palace is not built at the same angle. This picture is an earlier one, which the artist may possibly
have painted on the spot, or when he was more careful of local correctness. But much, however, as it may be superior to the other in
topographical accuracy, it is inferior in mystic charm, in the picturesque grouping of the boats. and in aerial magic. The point of
view is also not so happily chosen, as it does riot take in the domes and minarets which are introduced so effectively on the left of
the other picture. Turner had two Venices—Venice as it was, and the Venice of his imagination: Venice, the busy and gay city of
Italy; and Venice, the daughter of the sea, the paradise of Art. He has left enough specimens of each, equally good of their kind, to
satisfy the most realistic and the most poetical of his admirers; but to those, and there are many, who can at will indulge in either
mood, it is difficult to find fault with ,any of his Venetian pictures. |
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