Venetian Visions

Andrew Lambirth finds the National Gallery’s new exhibition on Canaletto and his contemporaries both illuminating and enjoyable

Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697–1768), better known as Canaletto, is a safe bet and a crowd-pleaser, and the weary critic is entitled to ask — not another Canaletto show? What can there be left to say? But note the exhibition title — Venice: Canaletto and his Rivals. Venice comes first, the great tourist trap herself, kingdom of the sea and romance-magnet, and in the placing of the words the unashamed popularism of the show emerges. Or so the cynic might think. In fact, this exhibition is not simply a celebration of Venice, but a carefully selected survey of Venetian view painting in the 18th century, full of surprises and revealing juxtapositions. This is an exhibition which manages that most difficult of feats: to combine scholarly exegesis with public approval.

In the first room is one of Canaletto’s earliest view paintings, ‘San Cristoforo, San Michele and Murano from the Fondamenta Nuove’ (c.1722),