Rio della Calcina, Venice 1883

Curator: Allow me to introduce Andrew Fisher Bunner's "Rio della Calcina, Venice" from 1883, a cityscape rendered with pen and ink. It is currently held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Editor: Oh, immediately, I'm sucked into the shimmering water. It's as if the whole city is breathing and dreaming. Curator: Bunner was quite invested in realism, especially capturing everyday life, here using a decidedly low-key approach. Notice how the canal almost vibrates due to the density of lines. Venetian painting had experienced somewhat of a revival with artists such as John Singer Sargent focusing on capturing the city, too. Editor: Absolutely. The textures! It's loose, but there's such confidence. He suggests so much with so little, even capturing the musty smell of the place. This little sketch packs a huge punch. I wonder if he even realised, leaning over that canal, capturing such an iconic city on paper. It feels almost as he had found magic on a page! Curator: Precisely! There's a social dimension to this almost hurried approach as if to capture that very same fleeting quality you highlight, with this drawing. He does something very modern by capturing an angle we as ordinary citizens of the world and of Venice would most probably occupy, making us look upon Venice from our own level of familiarity, so to speak. Editor: That's exactly it! It's so un-monumental. Venice isn’t being shown to us on a massive scale of artistic ambition, it's really about just feeling what he felt being there, pen and ink to hand. We are on his level! And that feeling makes you stop and think. It is special, you're right. Curator: A humble masterpiece, perhaps. A tiny window into the life and times and spaces that define Venetian existence and Bunner's response to that cultural dynamism. Editor: Well said. It has changed my day just seeing it. Imagine what it can do in the original!