Welcome to antoniocanal.com

--- Foreword by Roberto Delpiano ---

This website has the pretension to be the most complete (and precise!) reference about the ‘700 painter Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto.

What moved my interest and research was a discovery about his art, which I had always ignored as “postcard-making”: my all-time favorite painters have always been Van Gogh, Matisse, Munch, Andy Warhol’s Pop Art, Schiele, Picasso, Degas, just to give an idea of my different 'Art mind-frame'.

But Canaletto’s art I happened to find giving me a totally different vibration, and it got my interest because - as an all-time professional photographer since the '70s - I recognized his work as being amazingly fully photographic, although he didn't use film and chemicals like I had always done in my photographer's life.

So I dived into his art, personality and paintings, to find and glorify his use of this old-time photographic tool.

And having done some experimentation myself with this kind of device, and working on drawings that are in possession of the Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia, I am in the process of evaluating its possible use from Canaletto.

As things go, at the time almost every painter was playing around with that tool, and in my opinion he could have just used it as a visual reference.

Why: because Canaletto had already all the necessary tools in his eyes + brain, together with an amazing visual memory, to paint and draw what he wanted to.

P.S. I am still  putting together all the images of paintings and drawings and etchings I have been able to scan or find on the web (+ examining and evaluating as much as possible their authenticity with the biggest care), and there are quite a lot of them, way more than I imagined when I started this project.

So … stay tuned!