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Francesco Guardi
(1712-1793)
Guardi, Francesco (1712-93). Venetian painter, the best-known member
of a family of artists. He is now famous for his views of Venice, indeed
next to Canaletto he is the most celebrated
view-painter of the 18th century, but he produced work on a great variety
of subjects and seems to have concentrated on views only after the death
of his brother Gianantonio (1699-1760).
Until then Francesco's personality was largely submerged in the family
studio, of which Gianantonio was head and which handled commissions of
every kind. Francesco's career was unsuccessful in worldly terms; he was
still working for other artists when he was over 40, he never attracted
the attention of foreign visitors in the way Canaletto did, and he died
in poverty. Recognition of his genius came in the wake of most important
Italian decorative artist of the second half of the 17th century. He was
nicknamed Luca Fa Presto (Luke work quickly) because of his prodigious
Impressionism, when his vibrant and rapidly painted views were seen as
having qualities of spontaneity, bravura, and atmosphere lacking in Canaletto's
sharply defined and deliberate works.
Francesco was enormously prolific and his work is in many public collections
in Italy, Britain and elsewhere. The major problem in Guardi studies concerns
the authorship of paintings representing The Story of Tobit that
decorate the organ loft of S. Raffaele in Venice. Critical opinion is sharply
divided as to whether these brilliant works, painted with brushwork of
breathtaking freedom, are by Francesco or Gianantonio (there is dispute
also over the dating), but if they are indeed by the latter, he too must
rank as a major figure. Giambattista Tiepolo was married to the sister
of the Guardi brothers, and it was possibly through his influence that
Gianantonio became a founder member of the Venetian Academy in 1756. Francesco
was not elected until 1784, during the presidency of his nephew Giandomenico
Tiepolo.
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