Class 3 - The Artists Save Venice
Class 3 - The Artists Save Venice
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At the dawn of the 19th century, the future of Venice looked bleak.Without the draw of Carnival, which had been outlawed, where could the city turn to keep the economy alive? Fortunately, Venice continued to be a prime visiting place for well-heeled European and American visitors. Some rented stately palazzi and stayed there with their retinue of servants for the season. Others stayed with friends or in the palazzi that had been transformed into hotels. Among these were some very talented and perceptive artists and writers. This week we'll focus upon their reactions to what art historian John Ruskin termed "the paradise of cities."
JMW Turner is known for his seascapes sited off the coasts of England and France. But he also visited Venice, where he was entranced by the bright light, glistening water, and elegant architecture. Click on his self-portrait (as a young man) and learn about his visits to Venice. (A lively description, despite a few grammatical errors made by someone who's first language is not English.)
The Stones of Venice is a three-volume treatise on Venetian art and architecture by English writer, painter, and art critic John Ruskin, first published from 1851-1853. Rather dense in descriptions (and philosophizing) but filled with images based on the author's sketches, the volumes became de rigueur for English travelers to Venice. Below is an example of one of his drawings of a palazzo in the Gothic style.
In the early pages, Ruskin describes his reasons for creating this ambitious work:
“[Venice]… is still left for our beholding in the final period of her decline: a ghost upon the sands of the sea, so weak—so quiet,—so bereft of all but her loveliness, that we might well doubt, as we watched her faint reflection in the mirage of the lagoon, which was the City, and which the Shadow...I would endeavor to trace the lines of this image before it be forever lost, and to record, as far as I may, the warning which seems to me to be uttered by every one of the fast-gaining waves, that beat, like passing bells, against the Stones of Venice.”
John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, vol. I, ch. I, § 1
Ruskin, like Turner, often sketched while seated in a gondola. Here is his description of gliding across the water:
“And now come with me, for I have kept you too long from your gondola: come with me, on an autumnal morning, to a low wharf or quay at the extremity of a canal, with long steps on each side down to the water, which latter we fancy for an instant has become black with stagnation; another glance undeceives us --it is covered with the black boats of Venice. We enter one of them, rather to try if they be real boats or not, than with any definite purpose, and glide away; at first feeling as if the water were yielding continually beneath the boat and letting her sink into soft vacancy.”
John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice
American expat artist James MacNeill Whistler arrived in Venice in 1879, bankrupt after a sensational libel trial against John Ruskin. The Fine Art Society of London offered him a commission to do a dozen etchings of the city. Fired with inspiration and creativity, Whistler produced numerous drawings, some fifty etchings, over a hundred pastels, and a dozen paintings. His innovative views of backwater canals and picturesque architecture and his sparse renderings of the Venetian seascape reflected what he described as “the Venice of the Venetians”. When he returned to London, his works were exhibited - to wild acclaim. This restored both his reputation and his finances - and set art in a new direction. Click on the image below to learn more:
"Yes, I think we have seen all of Venice. We have seen, in these old churches, a profusion of costly and elaborate sepulchre ornamentation such as we never dreampt of before. We have stood in the dim religious light of these hoary sanctuaries, in the midst of long ranks of dusty monuments and effigies of the great dead of Venice, until we seemed drifting back, back, back, into the solemn past, and looking upon the scenes and mingling with the peoples of a remote antiquity. We have been in a half-waking sort of dream all the time. I do not know how else to describe the feeling. A part of our being has remained still in the nineteenth century, while another part of it has seemed in some unaccountable way walking among the phantoms of the tenth. "
Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad,1869
Palazzo Barbaro on the Grand Canal was owned until the nineteenth century by the noble Barbaro family. When the last of the Barbaro line died, the Palazzo was sold off to a group of investors, who sold it to American Daniel Sargent Curtis (a distant cousin of John Singer Sargent). Curtis renovated extensively and made the Palazzo a major gathering space for visiting artists and writers. Click on the image below to learn more about it:
From 1892 Millionaire art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner and her husband Jack rented the Palazzo Barbara from the Curtises during the summer months. They followed the tradition of the Curtises and welcomed the artists, writers and musicians to the palazzo, where Isabella (Belle) held court like a duchess in a Parisian salon. Artist Anders Zorn captured her vivacious presence in the painting below. She had been out on the balcony viewing fireworks, and in the painting she has flung open the glass doors to invite her guests to come out and join her.
What is so unique about Sargent's Venetian watercolors? Watch this video, in which landscape artist David Dunlop talks about the history of art while showing us how Sargent achieved his dazzling effects. It is a half hour long, so find a time when you can relax and enjoy it.
Many writers and painters saw a sort of melancholy beauty in a city in the twilight of its former glory. Henry James visited Venice frequently. On an early visit, he jotted downs his "impressions de voyage." Here is his description of being rowed with a companion across the lagoon in a gondola at twilight:
"...in the golden silence we could hear the far-off ripple in the wake of other gondolas, [and we witnessed] a golden clearness so perfect that the rosy flush on the marble of palaces seemed as light and pure as the life-blood on the forehead of a sleeping child. There is no Venice like the Venice of that magical hour. For that brief period her ancient glory returns. The sky arches over her like a vast imperial canopy crowded with its clustering mysteries of light. Her whole aspect is one of unspotted splendor. No other city takes the crimson evanescence of day with such magnificent effect. The lagoon is sheeted with a carpet of fire. All torpid, pallid hues of marble are transmuted to a golden glow. The dead Venetian tone brightens and quickens into life and lustre, and the spectator's enchanted vision seems to rest on an embodied dream of the great painter [Veronese] who wrought his immortal reveries into the ceilings of the Ducal Palace..."
And yet, Venice did spring to life during its festivals, which were dramatically enriched in every way to draw the attention of the city's many tourists.
"The feast of the Redeemer—the great popular feast of the year—is a wonderful Venetian Vauxhall. The Giudecca [one of Venice's islands] is bridged over from the Zattere to the great church —the pontoon bridge is placed in the afternoon with extraordinary celerity and art—and it is prolonged across the Canalazzo (to Santa Maria Zobenigo), which is my only warrant for glancing at the occasion. We glance at it from our palace windows; lengthening our necks a little, as we look up toward the Salute, we see all Venice, on the July afternoon, so serried as to move slowly, pour across the temporary footway. It is a flock of very good children, and the bridged Canal is their toy... At night all Venice takes to the boats and loads them with lamps and provisions. Wedged together in a mass it sups and sings; every boat is a floating arbour, a private café-concert. Of all Christian commemorations it is the most ingenuously and harmlessly pagan."
Henry James, Italian Hours
Below is a photograph of the nighttime celebration (with fireworks) in modern Venice.
Early in the 20th century, Claude Monet visited Venice. What a difference there is between his vision of the city and those of Canaletto! See below:
Venice has always had to worry about occasional flooding, but in recent times this problem has intensified, due particularly to Global Warming. This video explains the measures the city has taken to protect itself from the Adriatic waters. But is it enough? Will modern Venice survive?
You might want to come back to this assignment after our class discussion. It is a short video showing many of Turner's Venetian paintings, with the music of Vivaldi playing softly in the background. Enjoy!
If you don't like crowds but love Venice, try visiting the city in winter. See below:
Venice is the setting in several works by Henry James. He wrote The Aspern Papers (a short story) while staying with Isabella Stewart Gardner at the Palazzo Barbaro, and The Wings of the Dove is set in the Palazzo Leporelli, which is modeled upon the Palazzo Barbaro. Venice is prominent in his essays published in 1909 as Italian Hours, and the city appears again in Portrait of a Lady and The American. If you are not familiar with James and you like 19th century Venice, I suggest begin by reading The Aspern Papers, which is considered a literary masterpiece.
On a lighter note...Donna Leon is the American author of a series of novels set in Venice, featuring the redoubtable Commissario Guido Brunetti. Since his debut over thirty years ago in Death at La Fenice, Brunetti has investigated a new crime in Venice each year, all the while savoring the joys of family and fine Italian food and exploring the ambiguities of guilt and justice., Brunetti is well-educated (with the title dottore), having read classics at university He is the antithesis of a crime-fiction stereotype. And like James and Proust and others, he quietly mourns the Venice of earlier times.
These books are wildly popular, and I recommend them to anyone who loves mysteries and who loves Venice. There is even a book (Brunetti's Venice) which describes the many walks our hero takes around his beloved home city. And A Taste of Venice speaks for itself.
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