15. The Importance of the Dutch for Venice in the 18th Century

Before we follow our itinerant artists to other cities in Northern Italy, a word must be said about the continuation of the Dutch tradition in Venice in the 18th century. It is all too tempting to consider the ‘artistic’ culture of Venice in combination with painterly Baroque art from north of the Alps, to rashly see ‘Venice casting a fond eye northwards’ or the ‘Italians flirting with Rembrandt’ in Venice and therefore to infer a dependence on Dutch models. However, if we refuse to be deluded by a general relatedness between the two and concentrate instead on the clearly recognisable Dutch stylistic elements that were assimilated, traces of Dutch influence are few and far between in the flourishing art of Venice.⁴⁸²

Mention has already been made of the paintings Strozzi made in the manner of Rembrandt.⁴⁸³ There is little reason to doubt that he consciously adopted some aspects of Rembrandt’s style, the more so since he looked to other artists for inspiration during his time in Genoa. The artistic manner of Pietro della Vecchia (1602/3-1678), on the other hand, which strikes us as Rembrandtesque, is in fact a final manifestation of the style of Giorgione, which was passed on to him by his conservative teacher Padovanino [i].⁴⁸⁴ Vittore Ghislandi (1655-1743) from Bergamo, who worked in Venice for a number of years, copied Rembrandt’s Florentine self-portrait (Dresden, no. 547) [i],⁴⁸⁵ but this does not imply that his portraits were in any way Dutch-influenced. The Dutch approach is most readily apparent in his self-portrait by candlelight, which can be seen as a deliberate challenge to Godefridus Schalcken and Johann Kupezky [i].⁴⁸⁶ He may have intended the brownish backgrounds of his portraits and the capricious garments worn by his models to be ‘Rembrandt-like’, but his colours and painting technique were anything but. He probably passed on this ‘Rembrandtesque’ style to his pupil, Bartolommeo Nazari (1693-1758). Study heads, in particular, make it clear that Rembrandt was seen here through the eyes of fine-painters à la Denner [i].⁴⁸⁷ A contemporary called them ‘teste, depinta con tanta forza sull’elegante e singular maniera del Reimbrandt’ (heads painted with great vigour in the unique and elegant manner of Rembrandt).⁴⁸⁸ Giuseppe Nogari (1699-1766), an artist of his generation, provides a notable example of chiaroscuro painting in the manner of Rembrandt that is associated with the fine-painting of a later period. He almost always uses artificial light, thereby reproducing Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro in a manner as superficial as that of the fine-painters putting wrinkles on faces in ‘Dutch Realism’. This style proved especially popular in Germany and it therefore comes as no surprise to find so many paintings by Nogari in such a long-established German collection as the one in Dresden (fig. 18/55)[i][i].⁴⁸⁹

Returning now to Bologna to pursue a different line of development we come across the extraordinary figure of Giuseppe Maria Crespi (1665-1747), who offers renewed evidence of an affinity between Dutch and Italian art. His contemporaries noted that he had assimilated many features of the style of Titian, Tintoretto, Rembrandt and Rubens.⁴⁹⁰ This enumeration in itself indicates that the influence of Rembrandt, which was thought to have been reflected in Crespi’s treatment of light and shade [i], was not the overriding factor in his art. The chiaroscuro he used could be attributed in part to the Bambocciate, but we know that the art of Gian Antonio Burrini (1656-1727) art also made a strong impression on him. The impact of Rembrandt’s work is perhaps most noticeable in his prints.⁴⁹¹

Giambattista Piazzetta (1682-1754) from Venice was apprenticed to Crespi in Bologna and adopted his ‘Rembrandtesque chiaroscuro’ [i][i].⁴⁹² Johann Liss and Rembrandt were his teachers, or so it was said, and a series of etchings ‘sul gusto di Rembrandt’ has even been attributed to him.⁴⁹³ In any event, the dense, sombre chiaroscuro of the Rembrandt school was transformed in Venice into the light, bright Rococo of the 18th century. Relations with Rembrandt were of a very general kind, always maintaining a latent presence, as it were, in Venetian art. Strictly speaking, Rembrandt’s style was transposed to a different sphere in Venice.

This does not exclude the possibility of individual motifs being taken over from Dutch art, however, as is evident from the works of Jacopo Amigoni (1682/5-1752)⁴⁹⁴ and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804), for example [i][i][i].⁴⁹⁵ The great Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) appears to have avoided such borrowings [i][i].⁴⁹⁶ The two series of head studies Domenico etched after drawings and paintings by Giambattista look for the most part more Rembrandtesque than the originals [i].⁴⁹⁷ The studies of Rembrandt to be found so often in prints may have proved a source of inspiration to both father and son. On the other hand, the beautiful light colours in Tiepolo’s painted work are a world apart from the sombre seriousness of Rembrandt’s paintings.

Traces of Dutch influence can be detected in the works of Northern Italian landscape painters.⁴⁹⁸ Their vedute and, in particular, their colouring skills were greatly admired in the 18th century and their small, intimate works were much appreciated in Venice.⁴⁹⁹ Paintings and drawings by Dutch landscape artists will have been preserved in sufficient numbers in Italy and Berchem’s prints were even reproduced in Venice and published there by Joseph Wagner (1706-1780) [i].⁵⁰⁰ Marco Ricci (1676-1729),⁵⁰¹ the ‘founder of the Northern Italian-Venetian landscape’ travelled a great deal. He was in Holland as well as in England, where Dutch landscape paintings were widespread.⁵⁰² He was initially influenced by the energetic style of Salvator Rosa, Alessandro Magnasco and Pieter Mulier.⁵⁰³ It was only his idyllic portrayal of landscapes that brought him closer to the Dutch. This style is more readily apparent in etchings after original drawings, although a painted landscape like that of a winter scene in Dresden (no. 557)(fig. 56) [i] is also a good example of the continuing influence of late Dutch landscape art in the manner of Herman Saftleven.⁵⁰⁴

Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-1788)⁵⁰⁵ received his training in Rome and Florence under Paolo Monaldi and Andrea Locatelli, both of whom drew his attention to the Arcadian style of Claude Lorrain and Caspard Dughet. It was Marco Ricci in Venice, however, who encouraged him to employ a freer technique, which made him receptive to the work of Dutch artists. In 1764 he was said to be an ‘eccellente paesista sul gusto fiammingo’ [an excellent landscapist in the Flemish manner].⁵⁰⁶ However, this Flemish (i.e. Dutch) style only really found expression in his little staffage figures which are occasionally reminiscent of Berchem and Wouwerman [i]. Seldom did he paint a tranquil landscape in the Dutch style like the winter scene à la Saftleven, which is in a collection in Venice.⁵⁰⁷ His mixed Dutch-Venetian style later made him very successful in England, which he probably visited twice. This Arcadian tendency was continued by his pupil, Giuseppe Zais (1709-1781). He was more cursory and flexible than his teacher, which explains why his work often bore a greater resemblance to the ‘precursor of Rococo’, Nicolaes Berchem, than that of his teacher ever did [i][i].⁵⁰⁸ His landscapes were not so deeply rooted in the tradition of Claude, often being more reminiscent of the vague and airy manner of Jan Both [i]. It should not be forgotten that Zuccarelli and Zais lived in Venice at the time of Francesco Guardi, when the painterly trend was at its peak.⁵⁰⁹

It can be generally assumed that 17th century Dutch art, which boasted such prominent figures as Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Ruisdael and Berchem, was consistently regarded as a welcome source of inspiration in the development of a freer artistic style. When the spotlight is put on other artists, however, Dutch painting can be seen to have had the reverse effect. When Canaletto (1697-1768) arrived in England in 1746, his style of painting underwent a marked change, probably at the request of his clients, and his work suffered as a result. The clear Dutch colours and the down-to-earth drawings of a van der Heyden made Canaletto’s portrayals look like stereotyped topographical reproductions – and this was just after the freer approach to painting he had adopted had enabled him to surpass the vedute of the Dutch artist Caspar van Wittel (c. 1653-1737).⁵¹⁰ In the year Canaletto was born, van Wittel was in Venice, proof of which is provided by the painting in Madrid dated 1697 (fig. 16/48)[i]. When Canaletto arrived in Rome in 1719, van Wittel had left Naples to return to the city, where he held a prestigious position. Hence there is no need to assume that there was any mediation on the part of Luca Carlevaris (1663-1730) to see that Canaletto’s vedute paintings had their origins in van Wittel. In his drawings, too, Canaletto took over technical features from the Dutch artist, who in turn had learned them from Claude.⁵¹¹ Carlevaris [i], for his part, may have become familiar with van Wittel’s style in both Venice and Rome, where he stayed as a young man. An early work of his, which recently came to light after being discovered in the holdings of the museum in Modena [i], shows that even as a young man he had assimilated a great deal of the Dutch-oriented vedute painting tradition in Venice, the best-known representative of which was the younger Joseph Heintz (c. 1600-1678).⁵¹²