# Landscape with a Fisherman's Tent [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [GUARDI, Francesco]() - Date: 1751-1800 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 49 x 77 cm ## Commentary Whereas Canaletto incorporates classically inspired structures or ruins into his fantastic views, and accords them an important place in the composition, Francesco Guardi's capriccios mostly refer to his own immediate surroundings: the Venetian Lagoon. In this poetic scene decorative fishing boats with yellow and brown sails are illustrated, lying in still, light-green water. Similar little ships also figure prominently in a number of Guardi's town views. In the foreground fishermen are seated together in an improvised tent, while elsewhere men are busy moving freight. The composition is constructed clearly, by means of coulisses which harmonize with the nuances in the palette. The thickly painted foreground consists of a sand bar and a hillock, behind which the fishing tent is located. The middle distance is formed by a spit of land with the remains of a wall on it in subdued, brown tones, and a large ornamental vase on a pedestal, a motif that Guardi may have borrowed from Marco Ricci. Directly behind this rises the wispy silhouette of the city, which stands out against the low sunlight. The various levels are connected to one another by the transparently painted water, which merges with the sky almost imperceptibly at the horizon. The theme of the walled city on the water is reminiscent of the capriccios Luca Carlevaris and Marco Ricci painted some fifty or sixty years earlier under the influence of seventeenth-century Roman examples. Guardi gave this view an unmistakably Venetian streak, however, by means of the Lagoon-like atmosphere and the striking belltowers, walls and roofs, which seem to be borrowed literally from the Venetian townscape. ## Related artworks - [An Architectural Caprice]() - [Audience Granted by the Doge]() - [Bacino di San Marco with San Giorgio and the Giudecca]() - [Bridge at Dolo]() - [Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo]() - [Canal Grande with Santa Lucia and the Scalzi Church]() - [Capriccio with Venetian Motifs]() - [Carnival Thursday on the Piazzetta]() - [Church of Santa Maria Zobenigo]() - [Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo Appears to the People in St Mark's Basilica in 1763]() - [Fire in the Oil Depot at San Marcuola]() - [Fire in the San Marcuola Oil Depot]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()