Poster Art

Today's the day ....................... for pictures from an Exhibition

I went to an exhibition in our local Abbot Hall Art Gallery  today.

It's been on for a while but as is often the way with local things, it's taken me till now to actually go and see it.  It is entitled 'Canaletto - Celebrating Britain' and features some of the impressive paintings of Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768, known popularly as Canaletto.  His images of Venice were particularly popular with the well-bred English gentlemen undertaking their Grand Tour of Europe - but when war caused the flow of British visitors to Venice to dry up, Canaletto followed his patrons home to Britain, where he stayed for almost nine years from 1746 to 1755.

To be honest, I have never found his particular style of painting to my taste - although my Dad loved his work with a passion.  But that didn't stop me admiring his incredible attention to detail and his ability to faithfully recreate a landscape when there wouldn't have been cameras around to aid the process.

The poster shows the view from Somerset House terrace looking towards the City and was painted c1750.  No skyscrapers, of course - but St Paul's Cathedral and all the spires of Wren's Baroque churches that were springing up everywhere in the capital ..........................