Grand Canal with the Rialto Bridge, Venice

Francesco Guardi

National Gallery of Art

We look down and across a canal filled with more than two dozen gondolas and sailing boats, and flanked by rows golden-yellow and parchment-white buildings connected by a wide, arched bridge in this horizontal landscape painting. Some of the boats are pulled up to the buildings lining the water, and others weave through the canal, guided by one or two people each. Closest to us, two long, low, slender gondolas are angled toward each other. Other boats have curving, cabin-like structures, and there are three sailing ships with tall masts among the gondolas. The densely spaced buildings along either side of the canal have three or four stories with rows of dark, rectangular windows, but some have five stories, like the building closest to us to our right. Laundry hangs from some windows or from balconies, and rooflines are lined with low chimneys. The two banks of the canal are connected by a fawn-brown, stone bridge with a wide, arched span. The deck is covered with an arched walkway filled with pedestrians. The canal extends into the distance and turns a corner, so the rows of buildings create a screen beyond the bridge. Tiny in scale, people walk along both sides of the canal. Touches of white, black, brown, and harvest gold suggest clothing and hats. The water and buildings take up the lower third of the composition. Against a pale blue sky, a screen of white clouds darkens to flint gray in the upper right corner.