Description
Pierre-Auguste Renoir – The Piazza San Marco, Venice
| Year of creation: | 1881 |
| Original size: | 65.4 cm x 81.3 cm |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Located: | Minneapolis Institute of Art |
The Piazza San Marco, Venice is an oil painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, made in 1881. The original measures 65.4 x 81.3 cm, is catalogued as 51.19 and hangs in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Our hand-painted painting The Piazza San Marco is worked in oil on canvas, in eight sizes from 80 x 65 to 170 x 140 cm.
The basilica of San Marco fills the upper half of the canvas. Its domes and gilded gables catch the sun against a blue sky laid in with broad strokes; the darkest note is the deep blue-green of the central arch. The piazza opens pale and almost empty in the foreground, crossed by long violet shadows, with a scatter of pigeons in blue-grey. At the left a thin crowd of figures stands, each only a few marks, and the corner of the arcade closes the view.
The museum’s record notes something that matters here: the canvas was left in a sketch-like state, without any studio reworking. Renoir stopped in Venice at the end of October 1881 on his Italian tour and painted the scene on the spot, in rapid, pure, unmixed colour. Simple daubs stand in for the light on the facade, for the people and for the pigeons.
Our version is not a print. It is on exactly this kind of canvas that the difference is greatest: every stroke stays visible as a separate load of paint, distinct from its neighbour, and the ground is left open in places. Painting it by hand keeps that difference, which printed paper cannot imitate.
The bright blue-and-gold subject does well in a living room, a dining room or an entrance hall, where it should open the space up. For a smaller wall 100 x 80 cm is enough; above a larger piece of furniture we recommend 150 x 120 cm. We paint to order, in a different size on request. Before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished canvas for your approval. Your hand-painted painting The Piazza San Marco arrives ready to hang, with the canvas stretched on a wooden frame.
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