Venice is a Fake

Canaletto basically made up his paintings. By this I mean he created compositions that were for all intents and purposes - fake.

There is an exhibition of his work in Holyrood and feeling that I needed a little bit of 'KULTUR' I headed that way this weekend. I've never seen any of his work before but he is one of the few artists who upon stumbling across his work I can scratch my beard, nod and mumble 'nice Canaletto'. However, seeing the initial sketches and the finished paintings I noted for the first time how much his work reminded me of particularly well crafted comic book panels. He uses that eyes of an architect to render the buildings in almost perfect detail and fills the urban spaces with people going about their daily basis.

Going back to my first comment, like many comic book artists his views are Venice are in the main fake. He would widen a canal here, ignore a building there, change the perspective of a view. His Venice is a fake Venice - but a convincingly beautiful one - a Gotham of the 16th Century.