Italian School, 19th century, View with Punta della Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute

Italian School, 19th century View with Punta della Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute Oil on canvas, 40 x 65 cm The painting under examination, characteristic of the veduta (view painting) movement that developed during the 19th century in Italy and abroad, depicts a view of Venice, with particular attention to Punta della Dogana and the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. The work captures the unique atmosphere of the lagoon city, with its sparkling waters, the gondolas plying the canals, and the palaces reflected on the water. The term "Vedutismo" (View Painting) derived precisely from the main subject represented, the so-called "vedute" or views, that is, suggestive panoramas imprinted on canvas by the great painters of the time. They differed from previous landscape paintings precisely because of their strongly realistic nature, their almost obsessive attention to detail, and the total preponderance of the landscape element: prior to vedutismo, in fact, landscapes were used almost exclusively as panoramas, that is, as a background for the representation of men, women, or animals, which remained at the center of the scene. This new artistic current, on the other hand, led the landscape itself to assume the role of protagonist of the work. The reasons for this success are to be found above all in the custom of the Grand Tour, the journey made by the young scions of the European nobility to discover the continent, whose favorite destination was Italy: Florence, Rome, Naples and of course Venice, the most fashionable city of the entire eighteenth century, where the English were enraptured by the "decadent Italian charm." In Venice, vedutismo showed surprising signs of originality, projecting itself between anticipatory visions of Romanticism and absolute fidelity to the real, natural or architectural, thanks also to protagonists such as Canaletto, Francesco Guardi and Bernardo Bellotto. The marvelous landscapes on the lagoon and the unique monuments and palaces that populate it were in fact an unmissable destination for the nobles of the time and an irreplaceable subject for the vedutisti painters. In this case, the artist concentrates his attention on the timeless view of the Punta della Dogana (also called Punta della Salute or Punta da Màr), a thin triangular tongue separating the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal, overlooking the San Marco Basin and hosting the iconic Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, designed by Baldassarre Longhena in the first half of the seventeenth century, clearly visible here. Its construction was born as a solemn vow of the Serenissima to the Virgin Mary, in gratitude for the end of the terrible plague of 1630-1631 which decimated the Venetian population: it is no coincidence that many artists decided to raise it as the protagonist of their canvases, manifesting through iridescent colors and romantic and decadent atmospheres this deep connection with a place of great spirituality.