The House of Marco Ricci in the Bellunese 1726

Marco Ricci made this pen and brown ink drawing, The House of Marco Ricci in the Bellunese, sometime around the late 17th and early 18th century. Ricci’s landscapes take us into the picturesque Italian countryside. But what kind of picture are we getting? Ricci was Venetian, and his style evolved in response to the demands of elite patronage and the growing art market. We see peasants at work in the foreground, yet the composition is dominated by the grand house in the middle ground. Ricci’s landscapes can be viewed as a commentary on the social structures of his time, implicitly celebrating the virtues of country life while reinforcing the existing hierarchies of wealth and power. To fully appreciate Ricci’s work, we can research the social history of Venice, and the development of landscape painting as a genre. Ultimately, the meaning of Ricci’s landscape lies in its complex relationship to the society that produced it.