International Art News

February 20 to May 30, 2011 – National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Venice inspired a school of competitive view painters whose achievements are among the most brilliant in 18th-century art. The exhibition celebrates the rich variety of these Venetian views, known as vedute, through some 20 masterworks by Canaletto and more than 30 by his rivals, including Michele Marieschi, Francesco Guardi, and Bernardo Bellotto. Responding to an art market fueled largely by the Grand Tour, these gifted painters depicted the famous monuments and vistas of Venice in different moods and seasons.

Giovanni Antonio Canal was born in Venice on October 17 or 18, 1697 to a well-defined class in Venetian society, just below the ranks of the patrician nobility. His father, Bernardo Canal, was a painter of theatrical scenery and a view painter, and Canaletto appears to have assisted him at an early stage in the role of theater designer. In 1719-1720 he accompanied his father to Rome to execute scenes for two operas by Alessandro Scarlatti performed there during the Carnival of 1720. While in Rome, according to Anton Maria Zanetti, one of the artist’s earliest biographers, the young man abandoned the theatre and began to draw and paint architectural views. Canaletto’s name was inscribed for the first time in the register of the Venetian artists’ guild in 1720, which suggests a date for the beginning of his career as pittor di vedute, or view painter. He adopted the diminutive Canaletto (the little Canal) by the mid-1720s, presumably to distinguish his work from his father’s.
Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the National Gallery, London.

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November 20, 2010 – December 31, 2011 – Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), is opening the doors of its new wing for the Art of the Americas. The Art of the Americas Wing, as well as the Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard, are the focal points of the MFA’s transformational expansion and renovation project, planned and designed by architects Foster + Partners (London). The Art of the Americas Wing allows for the display of more than 5,000 works from the Museum’s American collections, more than doubling the number previously on view.
The MFA’s wing expands the context for American art. For the first time since the Museum’s founding in 1870, magnificent works representing all of the Americas are presented together in a wide range of media, including paintings, sculpture, works on paper, furniture, decorative arts, and musical instruments, as well as textiles, fashions, and jewelry. The Art of the Americas Wing contains 53 galleries—totaling 51,338 square feet—which include nine period rooms and four Behind the Scenes galleries. Galleries are arranged chronologically on four floors, allowing visitors to travel through time as they ascend. They begin on Level LG (Lower Ground), which is dedicated to ancient American, Native American, 17th-century andmaritime arts; Level 1 features 18th-century art of the colonial Americas and early 19th-century art; Level 2 examines 19th-century and early 20th-century art; and Level 3 focuses on 20th-century art. In the center of each level, large-scale core galleries form a central spine where iconic works of art highlight elements of each period. Complementary galleries run along each side as well as in adjacent north and south pavilions.

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