BERNARDO BELLOTTO

 

BERNARDO BELLOTTO

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SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture -by Gautam Shah

BERNARDO BELLOTTO (1720-1780) was born in Venice (died in Warsaw, Poland). He was Architectural Landscape Artist of urban scenes, printmaker. He was also called Canaletto Belotto or Canaletto the Younger, (after his famous painter uncle, Giovanni Antonio Canal, known also as Canaletto). He used his uncle’s name, Bernardo Canaletto for signing.

Bellotto was a realistic vedute painter (Venetian school) of Italian and eastern European cities, Dresden, Vienna, Turin and Warsaw. He selected elaborate vistas of public spaces and adjunct architecture. Bellotto ’s urban scenes have the same carefully drawn realism, as his uncle’s Venetian views, but are marked by heavy shadows and are darker and colder in tone and colour’. The fidelity of his perspective views, are in part attributable to the use of the camera obscura. But the architectural details and colour scheme are his own.

The post camera obscura capturing the studio work for the painting must have been long. He also added the specific illumination effects. His painting Polish capitals were used after World War-II to reconstruct and restore war-damaged historic structures of the city. His sketches in black ink and etchings are as extraordinary.

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