Fanciful View of the Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome

Francesco Guardi

National Gallery of Art

The painting shows a cityscape with a large cylindrical reddish-brown fortress on the right. In the center, a wide river winds through the city, with people by the riverbank and more people walking along a winding road on the left. In the background, there are tan buildings with terracotta roofs, a stone bridge, and a large white building with a blue dome. The sky is painted in soft blue and peach tones, with loose brushstrokes, and the water below is blue green. The wide road on the left is tan, and it curves around to join the stone bridge that crosses the river horizontally.