# Capriccio: Ruins and Classic Buildings [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [CANALETTO]() - Date: 1701-1750 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 87,5 x 120,5 cm ## Commentary Capricci are paintings in which Canaletto drew on his studies of identifiable sites and buildings, but combined them in an imaginative form to create a very consciously fictional and poetic image. Here he has brought together different architectural elements which seem to be both Roman and Paduan in inspiration. The dome on the horizon is reminiscent of that of St Peter's in Rome. Many versions of this composition exist and not all of them can be by Canaletto. The fact that such images were reproduced illustrates that there was a ready market for works of this type. In part they were inspired by the classical landscapes of the seventeenth century, but they also were conceived to appeal to the cult of ruins which developed during the eighteenth century - a trend fed by antiquarianism, archaeology and nostalgia. ## Related artworks - [A Regatta on the Grand Canal]() - [Arrival of the French Ambassador in Venice \(detail\)]() - [Arrival of the French Ambassador in Venice \(detail\)]() - [Arrival of the French Ambassador in Venice]() - [Bacino di San Marco \(St Mark's Basin\)]() - [Campo San Rocco]() - [Campo Santa Maria Formosa]() - [Capriccio: a Palladian Design for the Rialto Bridge, with Buildings at Vicenza]() - [Capriccio of a Bridge Leading to a Fortress by the Venetian Lagoon]() - [Capriccio: River Landscape with a Column]() - [Capriccio: The Grand Canal, with an Imaginary Rialto Bridge and Other Buildings]() - [Capriccio: The Horses of San Marco in the Piazzetta]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()