canaletto in venice

We went to the "Canaletto in Venice" exhibition at the Queen's Gallery on Saturday. There were several paintings and a large number of drawings, both finished work and sketches. Many of his paintings were commisioned through the British Consul, Joseph Smith, and in 1762 George III bought his collection - hence the exhibition.



His paintings tend to manipulate the topography and architecture with a lot of impossible viewpoints and things like straightened out canals, scaled buildings and missing columns to improve the views and make them more impressive. I found his drawings were quite cartoony featuring rounded figures and strange monkey/dog hybrids. I think they were supposed to be dogs but I like to imagine that Venice in the 18th century was full of pet monkeys. Canaletto's real name was Giovanni Antonio Canal - canals...venice?