Concert in a Villa
by VISENTINI, Antonio, Oil on canvas
Just after mid-eighteenth century, perspective painting became an autonomous form of pictorial expression and soon constituted the basis for an independent field of artistic endeavour in the Venetian academy itself. Antonio Visentini taught perspective as a subject in the academy and painted perspective views of impressive architectural complexes enlivened with stories from classical drama or imaginary vistas like the present painting. Here a complicated exercise in architectural perspective provides a setting for musical entertainment, one of the most pleasant pastimes of the aristocracy of the period.