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031114: Alte Pinakothek: Canaletto - Bernardo Bellotto paints Europe
Alte Pinakothek
Canaletto - Bernardo Bellotto paints Europe
17.10.2014 to 18.01.2015
Hybrid perspectives
By Matthias Kampmann
The carriage and six leans right into the curve. The passenger must be a special man. Is it the centrifugal force that is almost making him tumble out? It looks rather comically like it. The viewer is looking at the scene from the window of the "Jüdenhof". The view roves over the Dresdner Neumarkt . In the background, one sees the Church of Our Lady, completed six years ago in 1743. The square looks to be large and wide. The person who is almost having the accident is the commissioner, the Great Elector and King of Poland, August III. A painted joke? Hardly. One asks oneself how such a picture was perceived in the years 1749/52, the time when the picture was created by Bernardo Bellotto. Welcome to the age of enlightenment. From an Italian point of view, it was subtly entertaining.
It's one of these wonderful little stories about art that is associated with the work of the Venetian verduta and landscape painter. In the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, one can pursue further anecdotes and above all research with the aid of an artistic personality who is, admittedly, represented in every important collection but who in Germany has never been so extensively and thoroughly documented. Bernardo Bellotto, who – like his uncle Antonio Canal – is also called Canaletto, lived from 1722 to 1780. One sometimes thinks that verduta, i.e. painted cityscapes, are merely documents of topography or geography. These filigree pictures by an Antonio Canal or a Francesco Guardi, which show every little mullion and transom, every broken tile, were ultimately created in a time when there was no photography. Naturally, it should be documented how a city looked. But the appearances are deceptive. This is proven by this fantastic exhibition with well over 65 paintings, etchings and drawings.
Bellotto was a composer of exceptional rank. He used the camera obscura with nonchalant naturalness and joined hybrid perspectives with several vanishing points so that one got the impression of a true world even though the objects pictured in these compositions are purely fictitious. Squares become larger, rivers wider. For those familiar with the settings, more light falls unnaturally.
Up to now, Bernardo Bellotto was not familiar to many - that's past history thanks to this stupendous exhibition with contributions from the Museum of Fine Arts in Vienna, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg or the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum.
Old Pinakothek
80333 Munich, Barer Straße 27
Tel: +49 (0)89 23805 216
E-mail: presse@pinakothek.de
http://www.pinakothek.de/alte-pinakothek/
Opening hours: Tue from 10 to 20 hours, Wed to Sat from 10 to 18 hours. Closed Mondays.
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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031114
Alte Pinakothek
80333 München, Barer Straße 27
Tel: +49 (0)89 23805 216
Email: presse@pinakothek.de
http://www.pinakothek.de/alte-pinakothek/
Öffnungszeiten: Di. von 10 bis 20 Uhr, Mi. bis So. von 10 bis 18 Uhr. Mo. geschlossen
Alte Pinakothek
80333 München, Barer Straße 27
Tel: +49 (0)89 23805 216
Email: presse@pinakothek.de
http://www.pinakothek.de/alte-pinakothek/
Öffnungszeiten: Di. von 10 bis 20 Uhr, Mi. bis So. von 10 bis 18 Uhr. Mo. geschlossen
