Detail of Fantastic Landscape by Guardi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 2011

Fantastic Landscape

Francesco Guardi
(Italian, Venice 1712–1793 Venice)

Date: ca. 1765

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: Irregular, 61 1/4 x 74 1/2 in. (155.6 x 189.2 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Julia A. Berwind, 1953

Accession Number: 53.225.4

Description: These three large fantastic landscapes (capricci) were in the late nineteenth century in the castle of Colloredo di Monte Albano, in North-Eastern Italy, near Udine. It is unclear if the canvases were originally painted for the castle, which belonged to the Colloredo Mels family. The sizes and shapes of the paintings seem to have been adjusted by Guardi in the course of painting or immediately thereafter. The three compositions center around rocky outcroppings, slanting tree trunks and classical ruins. Small figures toiling and fishing are set against the vast expanse of delicately tinted sky and water.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/436595