This intimate view of Venice, weatherbeaten and dilapidated, is one of Canaletto’s masterpieces. In the early morning sun, workmen chisel away at pieces of stone. Everyday life continues around them: a mother rushes to comfort her crying child, watched by a woman on the balcony above.
This square – the Campo San Vidal – was not usually a mason’s yard: it appears to have been temporarily transformed into a workshop while repairs are done to the nearby church of San Vidal. The church of Saint Maria della Carità and its campanile (bell tower) are visible on the far side of the Grand Canal.
Painted during the late 1720s, this is one of Canaletto’s finest early works. He has skilfully described various materials and textures: the crumbling plaster, exposed brick, and rough timber in a subtle range of colours. The buildings of different styles and heights, the animated figures and the areas of light and shadow in this theatrical picture may recall the stage sets Canaletto painted at the very beginning of his career.
This is a description of a detailed oil painting called ‘The Stonemason’s Yard’ by Giovanni Antonio Canal, more commonly known as Canaletto. Painted in about 1725, this is one of Canaletto’s finest early works. It features a view of a back-street city square in Venice, under a vast blue sky. The perspective on the scene is elevated and from a distance - every inch crammed with rich detail. The square is the Camp San Vidal, which has been temporarily turned into a stonemason’s yard. Beyond it the painting depicts the flowing waters of the Grand Canal and the church of Saint Maria della Carita on the far bank. The small figures of stone workers in the square are busy repairing a nearby Church – which is not pictured - and we are given a vivid sense of the everyday lives of the local people around them. The square is enclosed by buildings on the far right and left of the image but it is the activity in the square, and the foreground of the painting, that grabs our attention. This central space is littered with huge chunks of white stone. Two kneeling masons attack them with hammer and chisel. On the right, a temporary wooden shed has been erected for storing equipment or seeking shelter from the midday sun. In front of the dilapidated shed, a woman in a rose-coloured skirt, leans over a well to collect water, her white sleeves rolled up to her elbows. The wellhead is crafted from the same white stone in the yard. Behind the shed is a two-storied, dark-pink dwelling with white
curtains fluttering at open the windows. A woman sits spinning cloth on the wooden balcony. Beyond this are the rooves, chimneys and towers suggesting the densely packed cityscape. To the left of the square part of a three storied dwelling is shown – casting a dark shadow that adds to the paintings sense of depth. It is clad in decaying pink and white plaster and topped with a flaring chimney, typical of Venetian architecture. Its wooden window shutters are flung open and a red breasted cockrel perches on a ground floor window ledge, probably contributing to the general clamour. On the first floor a woman dressed in a brown pinafore and white shirt, her hair up in a bun, leans over a small balcony edged with pot plants. She has one hand on a bundle of drying bedding but is craning to look down at a fallen toddler in the square below. The toddler sprawls on its back in the mud. A slightly older girl stands nearby looking on, but an adult, probably the toddlers Mother, dressed in white blouse and long brown skirt is dashing to the toddler’s aid, an abandoned broom propped up against the building in her wake. Against the side of the dwelling, more figures sit in dense shade, a man and a woman who seem in conversation. Winding its way across the centre of the painting is a narrow strip of the Grand Canal: painted in subdued shades of green. Gondolas are moored along the edge or ferry passengers from bank to bank. The far
bank is lined by buildings and multiple citizens who are dwarfed by the sprawling church of Saint Maria on the left: its tall, pointed bell tower dominating the horizon. Infront of the church is a white painted dwelling and to the right – more houses with rows of washing lines. Above this the top of the painting is filled with pale blue sky, wreathed in skeins of creamy yellow or dark grey cloud. The scene on the far bank is recognisable today although the church and the buildings adjacent are now Venice’s Academia art gallery. Something is missing however: the bell tower collapsed in 1744, a few decades after the painting was made demolishing the house in front of it! As a young artist, Canaletto painted stage scenery for theatres. In this painting, we get a distinct sense of Venice as a theatrical set, populated by its own cast of local players.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Michael Levey, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Italian Schools’, London 1986; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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