St Mark’s Square, Venice by Canaletto, painted 1742 to 1744. Oil on canvas. The painted surface is just under 4 feet high by about 5 feet wide.
This description is 3 minutes long.
We look slightly down onto and across St Mark’s Square in Venice, towards St Mark’s Basilica, or cathedral, to the left, and the adjoining Ducal Palace, to the right.
In the plaza in front of the buildings, people stroll, stand and talk, or buy and sell goods from stalls.
The cathedral and palace buildings nearly span the width of the canvas: they stop just short of the right side as they angle away from us to our right. The left edge of the cathedral lines up with the left edge of the canvas. To the right, the whole rose pink façade of the palace is shown, with a distant glimpse of water and ships beyond.
Above, the sky is duck-egg blue, with a few fluffy white clouds.
Let’s move across the two buildings from left to right.
The façade of St Mark’s Basilica is divided into two registers. The lower register has deeply recessed, arched portals. There is a wide entrance in the center, with 3 narrower arches to each side. These arches are supported on clusters of slender columns.
In the upper register, a shallow balcony runs across an elaborately decorated façade. A central arch is the width of the wide portal below. A sculpture of four golden, prancing horses sits in front of this arch. A pair of arches, wider than those on the lower level, flank the central arch on the second story. These arch-shaped features to each side are decorated with painted scenes; and each arch is crowned with a band of ornamental stonework.
Silvery domes topped by pointed lanterns rise beyond the upper gallery.
Moving along to the right, the cathedral adjoins the pink façade of the Ducal Palace. This building is a long, rectangular block, supported by two levels of archways, one over the other. People walk among the columns supporting the lower archway, on ground level. Above it, people peer out from behind a stone handrail in the upper archway, which runs the full length of the building. The façade above is pierced by seven large windows, the central one surrounded by ornamental stonework.
Moving now to the foreground: the square is an expansive paved space. Stalls set out under umbrellas are piled with colorful textiles. People, mostly men, gather around the stalls and stroll in between. The men wear cloaks, tricorne hats over powdered wigs, and wide-skirted coats. The few women wear full-skirted dresses and shawls, or are dressed in nuns’ habits.
