Entrance to the Grand Canal from the Molo, Venice

Canaletto

National Gallery of Art

We look slightly down onto a port-side town along a canal, with a church across the water from us in this horizontal landscape painting. A bright blue sky with billowing white, pink, and gray clouds fills the top two-thirds of the painting. Below, a three-masted ship with all but one sail furled is surrounded by a couple dozen black long, low boats, gondolas, and one or two other sailboats. People stand and walk mostly in pairs and trios along the stone walkway under us, which extends into the distance to our right. The women all wear long dresses and most of the men wear suits with knee-length jackets with tails or capes, and hats. The clothing is painted in shades of brick and terracotta red, pine green, royal blue, and gray. The walkway is interrupted by two low walls that partition off an area near us. The angled roofs of stalls line the walkway in the farther distance before it is again interrupted, this time by a two-story, cream-colored building. The walkway continues as a narrower path under an arched arcade on the lower level of that building, alongside the water. On the far side of the canal, to our left and in the distance, a cluster of ivory-white buildings includes a structure with two stone-blue domes. More buildings extend into the deep distance to our left.