Festival day, venice 1879

Eugen von Blaas painted 'Festival Day, Venice' sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century, depicting figures in what appears to be Renaissance dress. But this is no historical scene. The artist produced an image of Venice that catered to popular taste for romantic visions of the city, as it became a tourist destination. The rosy-cheeked women and serenading musicians speak to the consumption of Venice as a leisure destination. The Italian city, no longer an independent power, was being repackaged for a new global market of tourism and its associated industries. To properly understand paintings such as this, we need to look beyond face value. Archival sources, tourist guides, and other paintings of the period will tell us more about the economy of representation during this period of Italian history. The work reminds us that what we see in art is inseparable from the world of economic and social exchange.