Perspective View with Portico (detail)
by CANALETTO, Oil on canvas
The subject - the entrance to a Venetian palazzo, complete with courtyard, grand staircase, and gallery - certainly gave the artist a vehicle for displaying his skill in perspective. Even so, an extraordinary chromatic luminosity also brings great impact to the architectural imagery, in which every last detail has been rendered with such analytical precision as to seem a quasi-record of reality.