View of the Grand Canal at San Stae 1738

Bernardo Bellotto, nephew and student of Canaletto, painted this view of the Grand Canal at San Stae sometime in the mid-18th century. Bellotto, like his uncle, built his career on the production of vedute, or view paintings, catering to the Grand Tourists eager to bring home a piece of Venice. While seemingly objective, these paintings were far from neutral. Bellotto frames Venice as a site of commerce and leisure, but mostly for a certain class. Can you see the gondolas gliding through the canal, the merchants conducting business on the waterfront? The city pulses with life, yet this life is carefully curated, the working classes rendered picturesque, rather than present. Bellotto's Venice is idealized for the consumption of the wealthy, obscuring the social realities of a city built on trade but rife with inequality. Consider how this perspective has shaped our understanding of Venice, a city romanticized through the very act of painting.