Canaletto’s Camera explores the ways in which the great Venetian artist Antonio Canaletto (1697-1768) made use of the camera obscura - the forerunner of the photographic camera - as an aid to drawing and painting.
The book surveys Canaletto’s contacts with contemporary Venetian and Paduan scientists, in particular Francesco Algarotti who wrote on Newton’s philosophy and the camera obscura. Canaletto also relied on many measured drawings of Venetian buildings by his colleague Antonio Visentini, a debt that has not previously been recognised.
Canaletto’s Camera proposes that Canaletto used the camera for two purposes: tracing from real scenes, and copying and collaging drawings and engravings by other artists. Analysis of the camera sketches made by Canaletto in a surviving sketchbook shows how the artist traced views in Venice and then altered the real scenes in his finished drawings and paintings. He raises the domes of churches to give them due prominence, shifts buildings sideways, and combines views from multiple viewpoints, while still maintaining the appearance of ‘photographic’ accuracy.
By using a reconstructed eighteenth-century design of camera obscura, it has been possible to make drawings of views that Canaletto painted in London. His methods of ‘photomontage are used to recreate both a new veduta (a real view) and a new capriccio (a fantasy) using the artist’s processes of ‘photomontage’. The capriccio is assembled, like Canaletto’s, from pre-existing drawn elements taken from several sources. These experiments are detailed in the book, shedding new light on the artist’s procedures, and showing how permeable the boundary is between the two types of picture.
Canaletto’s Camera is published by UCL Press in June 2025 and will be available as an open-access download. Hardback and paperback copies will be available for sale on demand.
Philip Steadman is Emeritus Professor of Urban and Built Form Studies at University College London, and author of Vermeer’s Camera (Oxford University Press, 2001).
Images:
Book cover: UCL Press
Portraits: Prospectus Magni Canalis Venetiarum, 1735