The Piazza San Marco, Venice

Architectonic in construction and architectural in content, this magnificent 'venduta', or view, sparkles with the very light of Venice. This was subject matter tackled time and time again by Canaletto, probably with the aid of a 'camera obscura'; yet despite the artist's concern for accuracy, this painting is nowhere dull or perfunctory in its attention to detail. Having worked as a scenographic artist in the Italian perspectival tradition, and as the son of such an artist, Canaletto was ideally placed to become the greatest recorder of the physical glories of the city-state called 'La Serenissima'. This is not to say that the human glory of Venice is ignored. Canaletto, here as elsewhere, populated the Piazza with a dizzying and deliciously executed array of merchants, friars, wigged officials, masked revellers, mysterious women, children and dogs. If the majority of such views were intended for consumption by English and other tourists, this has not been to the detriment of their remarkable artistic quality.

AGNSW Handbook, 1999.