Riva degli Schiavoni

By the 1730s Venice had lost its old power at sea and taken on a new role: it had become the great stop on the Grand Tour, and young Englishmen wanted the view to carry home. Canaletto painted it for them. This is the Riva degli Schiavoni, the broad quay just east of the Doge's Palace, named for the traders from the Dalmatian coast, the Schiavoni, who moored there. He is thought to have used a camera obscura to fix the run of the buildings and the water, then filled the front of the picture by hand with boatmen, sellers, and small knots of people going about a working morning. The light is the flat midday brightness Venice throws off the lagoon. Count how many separate little boats he has crowded along the edge, each on its own errand.