Exploring 18th Century Europe Through the Paintings of Bellotto

what you're looking at right now is an example of the Deuter a dronov painting that specializes in cityscapes and which flourished in 18th century as wealthy aristocrats traveling to Italy wanted to memorialize their journeys one of the great masters of this art was Bernardo Billiton from the 1730's of Attila staff in 1780 he made numerous detailed and highly realistic depictions of cities in their surroundings ranging from Rome in Italy to Dresden in Germany and Warsaw in Poland together these paintings provide us with a glimpse in the 18th century Europe and with a level of accuracy that won't really be surpassed until the invention of photography [Music] balota was born in venice in 1722 already at an early age it showed talent for painting and was allowed to train in the workshop of his uncle the famous canaletto he learned quickly and managed to become a member of the Venetian painters guild which only accepted the most skilled of artisans at the age of just 16 during his time in training he developed a style very similar to that his uncle although generally more cool crisp and attentive to things like clouds shadows and foliage it's also possible with us now introduced to the camera obscura this was an ancestor to the photographic camera but it didn't actually make an image instead it would protect the even subjects to a piece of paper in turn along the artist to carefully trace it and make an accurate depiction of what existed in real life [Music] in around 1740 Pilato so to speak graduated from his studies and became an artist in his own right encouraged by Canaletto he went on a several month long trip through central Italy two years later reportedly with the goal of improving his style he stayed for a while in Florence and in lucca were painted this view of the Piazza San Martino he then continues on to Rome and makes a number of paintings like this one showing the via Tirupathi and the Tiber you might think that the city of Rome hasn't changed all that much in the last couple of centuries but at least in this case almost nothing was pilato painted action looks the same to deign to begin with the entire riverfront is now occupied by the ARA Pacis Museum a modernist structure made housed the ancient altar of peace then there is the church of san rocco a Lago steel which in 18th century still had its fabric structure exposed but which has since received a much more grounded neoclassical facade if you look beyond San Rocco will find that the entire block of buildings seen in the painting have been demolished this was done in the 1930s in order to excavate out of the urban fabric the old mausoleum of Augustus the first of the Roman emperors the two buildings that remain more or less the same can be found closer to the viewer they are the church of San Girolamo de Crotty the National Church of Croatia in Rome built in the 16th century by refugees fleeing the Turks and the building closest to the viewer which nowadays serves as the Embassy of Spain while in Rome he also painted a couple of views of the ancient forum and even here things not the same today in this painting for example we can see the remaining three columns of the temple of castor and pollux in the foreground they still stand out today haven't been put up by emperor Tiberius some 2,000 years ago but excavations throughout the 19th century have revealed roads and foundations that were hidden below the earth in bloato's time by the end of 1740 to Pilato had returned to Venice and continued painting scenes from there over the next couple of years he would also make a number of shorter journeys to Lombardi Piedmont and Verona where it would begin to take an interest in these surroundings of towns and in landscape pitting in 1745 the Lotto receives his first royal commission by trans manual the third king of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy he is tasked with creating two views of churn the capital of the kingdom and one of them would catch a first glimpse of the artist himself sitting in a blue coats next to another man and a priest standing beside them he looks towards the Royal Palace perhaps taking in the view and the wandering he'll go bonds painting it the next great milestone in blotters life will come two years later as left Venice for good to settle in Dresden then out when a five year old artist had been summoned there by yet another monarch Augustus the third who was both an actor of the German state of Saxony with Christina s capital and king of the polish-lithuanian Commonwealth one of the great powers of Europe during the 1740s he initiated a massive building program aimed at making a Saxon capital one of the most vibrant architectural and artistic centres in Europe and it called up a lot of document this transformation the talented young Malaysian seems to been valued by the King as his soon became the official court painter and received an exceptionally high salary as well as the diamond studded snuff box to top it off in one of his first paintings of the city we can see signs of its transformation to the left stands thief Hwang ji-hye a massive Protestant church which decades in the building had been completed just a few years before bolotov survival below it is the palace of Heinrich formerly the prime minister of Saxony which had been put up in the 1730's and will end up being demolished in 1900 breehn was not a great patron of mulatto and would often commissioned copies Swiss painting is made for the King looking towards the bridge crossing the river Elbe we found another way change in the process of construction in a painting made the following year we get to see it a bit more up close even though Saxony was majority Protestant this impressive new baroque structure is actually a Catholic Church this is because August's had converted to Catholicism in order to be elected king of Poland I needed a representable house of worship for him and his court while in Dresden he also painted this view of these vineya panis begun by Augustus's father it was inspired by the grandeur of Versailles which he had visited on his grand tour through France and Italy in 1687 to 89 it was officially inaugurated in 1719 but work on it stopped before could be completely finished on some of the paintings we can see the now long-lost fortifications of the city in this case must-reads teaming with city dwellers engaging in their varying strains it is also thanks to balata that we have this clear view of the old coat skijor which would not survive 18th century in fact in the case of Dresden almost all buildings they painted would eventually be destroyed in a series of bombing raids at the end of World War two one of the areas which suffer the most destruction was the NOI max seen here in the background you can see the foul India and in the foreground is the renaissance style johani on which despite its palatial appearance was actually built as a Warren stables in the mid 1500s and remodeled into a guesthouse in the 1730's after the war the area looked like this much of historic Tristan would remain in ruins for several decades but luckily the old town has recently been painstakingly restored to its former after having completed 14 large views of Dresden pelota was instead asked to paint the nearby town of piranhas amid 1750s here he primarily depicted the impressive focus of solar Stein belts during the renaissance on the site of an old medieval castle he also shows us the town itself like in this picture of the marketplace an area where time in many ways seems to be Stood Still in the end though relatives Town and Saxony was cut short for the Seven Years War in 1756 the Persians invaded the country forcing Augustus and countably to flee to Poland thus having lost his patrons Pilato suddenly found himself without work and had to leave in search for new clients he first went Southwest to the nearby Principality of why would he stay there however proved on lucrative and in early 1759 he moved on to Vienna we found new patrons in the form of two leading noblemen seen here is the lavish home of one of them Prince Wenzel anthem of comets fight back the Polanco needs as is known was built by the princes grandfather of 50 years earlier and had after leaving the possession of the family recently been bought back and renovated by Benson Anton the power donor can be seen in the foreground flanked on either side by secretary and his storm the other of the two noblemen was Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein a distinguished general diplomat and a member of the same family that still rules Liechtenstein today his palace was also depicted by mulatto once again with the owner appearing in the foreground but most of us work in Vienna would come from no one less than the Austrian Empress herself maria theresia in total she had obtained 13 use of the principal attractions of the city especially emphasizing her own palaces like in this painting shown the Magnificent schönbrunn palace back in the city center we get to see this vibrant market scene on the fiim square star suffering mostly vegetables in a set up all around it's reaching the Scott interior on the other side the church which dates all the way back to the 12th century called his name because as founded by monks from Ireland then on to the Austrians of New Scotland although these cotton Keauhou itself remains fairly unchanged many large new buildings have since been erected around it another equally vibrant seen from inside the city shows the annoyer market also known as the male mocked upper to the 19th century this is where various forms of cereal and flour or meal used to be traded hence its name the square was seriously damaged in World War two and is now with the exception of the small church and fountain almost unrecognizable after having spent two years in Vienna below two moved on to Munich unto the court of electronics many of the 3rd joseph of bavaria while there he met with the aunt of the saxon throne frederick christian had come there to seek refuge from the war presumably as a gift whose host he now had the lotto paints two views of munich one shows the royal palace of nymphenburg and the other gives us a view of the city itself the stained munich wouldn't be a long one however and in 1761 the same year that he arrived a lot of return to dresden the addressed entity returned to ever had been badly damaged during the war in fact the Lotto had personally suffered a considerable financial loss as his house in Poorna had been destroyed by Persian bombardment the year before inside of it had been numerous work service amounting to a value of 50,000 tana another victim of the bombardment was the old coats keha as we saw earlier he had painted during his first stay in Dresden but since he now returned to the building we get to see the startling before-and-after view the ruins are already in the process of being cleared up and we can see the foundations of a new baroque church being laid the original highly ornate design would have incorporated parts of the old tower which was still standing but as it collapsed in 1765 a new design was needed and this time a more austere classically oriented style worn out and was eventually built this would be one of his last video T of Destin in 1763 both Augustus and Campion had died the new elector was now Frederick Christian humba lotto had met in Munich but having been sickly throughout his life Frederick died from smallpox having reigned for just 74 days his successor had little interest in beloved old style of painting and furthermore salt encouraged Native artists to fill the recently opened Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in order to make a living pellet instead began painting allegories or as in this case imagining landscapes known as Capri Chi he had already dipped his feet into this category back in Italy but Ross says his work from western apart is the impressive architecture and the prominent part that it takes in addition to this he also got the position in the Academy where he told students about perspective despite his flexibility job offers were just not as common or as well paid as in the old days and so when an opportunity appeared for him to work in st. Petersburg under Katherine the rate he gladly took it as a turn out though his services were still very much in demand outside of Saxony and so ona got about half way before he found another client in King Stannis wofe ii August's of Poland therefore instead of going to Russia his hell down in Warsaw where it would stay from 1767 up until his death in 1780 the day he received a very generous salary and join respectively becoming a small colony of Italian artists employed by the king they were put to work renovating to his residences he asked of council and the Royal Council in Warsaw in the case of blotto he was tasked to paint two long series of a duty that will adorn certain rooms down his first ones were views of Rome based on actions by PNAC the lady moved on to painting warsaw and south in this view date into 1770 you can see the city from the pocke district across the river fistina we also once again get to see pilato himself this time in the middle of work on one of his paintings sitting next to him dressed in brown is kim stanislav pointing towards the city the two men standing to the left are identifying a spirit of San Lorenzo and the son-in-law but this time served as rural geographer [Music] Lorenzo was just like his father a painter and a recent help for the views of Rome unfortunately though he would pass away that same year incidentally Warsaw just like Dresden is a city has suffered immense destruction during world war ii and so bloato's paintings will actually serve as valuable sources when the old town was being rebuilt in the 1950s this painting showing Castle Square and the famous sigismund's column is one of the areas that we constructed it was also painted in the opposite direction here we can see the column in the far back and a little closer to the right is Saint Anne's Church the building has been altered and rebuilt many times of the centuries but it will gain its final neoclassical facade about 15 years after this painting was made therefore it lets us see the church's old stained with exposed brick and elegant baroque entrance another building that has undergone much change is the blue palace to begin with it got its name from the blue roof through the which it was covered in 1807 during the following decades the palace was completely rebuilt in a more Spartan neoclassical style and was partially destroyed during the war although later reconstructed its surroundings are drastically different today finally this view shows near Dover Street located not far from the old town to the right is brenneke panas another example of a building that was destroyed and then rebuilt based on below those paintings on the other side we can see the krakow episcopal palace it's two rebuilt after the war and beyond that seven are lost but at the time brand new pepper palace if you look further back behind the branches of the tree you can glimpse the shape of a church this is the Capuchin church and it's actually where balata was buried following his sudden death in 1780 he was 59 years old and the cause of death is thought have been a stroke [Music]

Channel: Kings and Things

Views: 90,602

Keywords: history, 18th century, saxony, poland, polish history, venice, canaletto, art, painters, veduta, painting, photography, early photography, earliest photographs, oldest photograph, camera obscura, seven years' war, european history, castes, palaces, baroque, rococo, neoclassical, classical architecture

Id: pTtS7RelY6c

Length: 14min 58sec (898 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 18 2019