Canal Grande, Venetië before 1931

Curator: Ah, this is a rather captivating print; an etching actually. Entitled "Canal Grande, Venetië" by Etienne Bosch, it’s believed to have been created sometime before 1931. Editor: Moody, isn't it? A real chiaroscuro thing going on. The sky presses down, almost mirroring the water. Like a city holding its breath. Curator: Yes, the contrast is quite dramatic, typical of Venetian painting and harking back to the Baroque style. Consider the socio-political weight Venice carried; this print would have circulated within a Europe still clinging to ideals of the Grand Tour. Editor: True, the Grand Tour...every posh young thing had to float down the Grand Canal, didn’t they? I wonder what Bosch was really feeling. Beyond the "Venice is pretty" postcard view, there's something unsettled. Look at the scratchy lines, the almost frantic detail in the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute. Curator: Interesting. I’m looking more at the figures – anonymous, dwarfed by the architecture, rendered as ghostly as the palazzi themselves. The Church, literally looming. Perhaps it's a meditation on the decline of Venetian power? A commentary on its gilded cage? Editor: Could be. Or maybe he was just cold and wet on a Tuesday morning! The lone gondolier though, he feels symbolic somehow. Piloting through history, always looking backwards, toward the familiar. And the light, clinging to the edges of the dome. Gives it a defiant kind of beauty. Curator: An excellent point. The way that light catches – consider the role that light has in the imagery around power. It's worth considering this within art history’s construction of Venice – its symbolic import, even now. Editor: Right, you get the sense that the whole place might just slip beneath the waves at any moment. Romantic and melancholy. I dig it. Curator: It certainly leaves you with something to consider. Editor: Indeed, makes you want to hop on a gondola and ponder the cosmos... or just find a nice espresso.