Biography

The Austrian Succession War of the 1740’s interrupted Canaletto’s market due to the huge reduction of English visitors to Venice. Smith also paved the way for the publication of several fancy etchings in hopes of getting higher profits for Canaletto but they didn’t performed as they had hoped they would in bringing more customers so Canaletto moved to London in in1746 getting him  nearer to his market. He remained in England till 1755 through which he produced views of London and many castles and houses of his patrons.

Many of his English patrons expected him to paint similar to the styles and forms he used when he was painting Venice but to no avail. His work is suffering from repetitiveness and loss of fluidity that has an English critic Geroge Vertue deemed his current work as that of an impostor working under his name. This time was considered a dark time for the artist which has seen much degradation to his work that he never recovered for the rest of his career. He even held public painting demonstrations to refute the claims of his critics to no avail.

He returned to Venice beaten and worn but still an artist to the highest order that had him elected to the Venetian Academy in1763. He continued work on paintings that usually focused on past works, but he continued to surprise the art world by producing new compositions that were comparable to earlier works that earned him his reputation a s prominent artist in the city of Venice. He died in Venice in the year 1768 as one of the greatest landscape artists of all time.