Attributed to FRANCESCO GUARDI (Venice, 1712-1793). "View of the Arsenal of Venice". Ink on paper. With illegible inscription. Size: 11 x 22 cm; 25,5 x 33,5 cm (frame). Landscape drawing showing a horizontal view of the city of Venice, specifically of the Arsenal. The scene, which is composed in the form of a frieze, shows the buildings and the typical gondolas of the city that were and are so much admired by artists. The work belongs to the genre known as veduta ("view" in Italian), which developed particularly from the Baroque period onwards, especially from the 18th century onwards, in parallel with the growing importance of the landscape genre. Within this genre, veduta is notable for its depiction of urban views, usually with a high degree of detail, as the artists worked from elaborate sketches and studies made from life. The Venetian school of veduta was particularly important and included artists such as Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto, Francesco Guardi and others. The genre was imported from Venice to other parts of Europe, although the city of canals would always be the master of this type of art. Francesco Guardi was born in Venice into a family of Trentino nobility. His father Domenico (born 1678) and his brothers Niccolò and Gian Antonio were also painters, and inherited the family workshop after their father s death in 1716. They probably all contributed to some of the larger commissions that were later attributed to Francesco. His sister Maria Cecilia married the leading Venetian-European painter of her day, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and in 1735 Guardi moved to the studio of Michele Marieschi, where he remained until 1743. His first known works date from 1738 for a parish church in Vigo d Anuania in Trentino. During this period he worked alongside his older brother Gian Antonio. His works from this period included landscapes and compositions of figures. His early vedute paintings reveal the influence of both Canaletto and Luca Carlevarijs. Francesco Guardi s most important later works include the Doge s Feasts, a series of twelve canvases celebrating the ceremonies held in 1763 for the election of the Mocenigo de Doge Alvise IV. In his later years, Canaletto s influence on his art waned, as evidenced by the Piazzetta in the Ca d Oro in Venice. In about 1778, he painted the severe Holy Trinity which appears in the Sts. Peter and Paul in the parish church of Roncegno. In 1782, he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Among all the paintings attributed to Francesco and his brother Gian Antonio Guardi, the most praised work is not a landscape, but the airy sfumato Story of Tobit painted for the organ in the small Chiesa dell Angelo San Raffaele. To quote from the Web Art Gallery:The perspective, the organised airy space, the Palladian solidity of Tiepolo ... are exchanged for a personal style of handwriting, now brilliantly calligraphic, now brilliantly cloudy.Guardi s painting style is known as pittura di tocco (by touch) for its small strokes and energetic brushstrokes. Giovanni Piazzetta and Sebastiano Ricci used this looser style of painting, and it recalls, in some religious subjects, the sfumato characteristic of Barocci s Bolognese style. In this it differs from the more linear and architecturally precise style of Canaletto s painting. This style would make Guardi s works highly appreciated by the French Impressionists a century later.