Bacino di San Marco, Veneza

Canaletto painted this in the late 1730s, at the height of the Grand Tour, when wealthy young Englishmen came to Venice and wanted a view to carry home. English visitors were his main buyers, and this canvas seems to have gone to one of them, an earl passing through the city on his travels. So this is Venice as a tourist first saw it, from the water, the wide basin in front of Saint Mark's crowded with gondolas and cargo boats, the Gothic front of the Doge's palace along the left and the church of San Giorgio Maggiore closing the view at the right. Canaletto worked partly from drawings made with a camera obscura, which is why the perspective feels so measured. Notice how many of the small figures on the water are doing plain work, rowing and hauling, not sightseeing.