The melon sellers 

Antonio Paoletti painted 'The Melon Sellers' in Venice, likely in the late 19th century, using oil on canvas. Here, the artist engaged with the traditional techniques of fine art painting to depict a scene of everyday life. He uses thin layers of oil paint to capture the light and textures of the Venetian scene, from the stone pavement to the water in the canals, and the rounded shapes of the melons. Look closely and you will see a subtle tension between the artist's sophisticated technique and the subject matter. Paoletti captures the labor and commerce of the working class in Venice, the children, and the melon sellers, but it does so through the very fine art medium of oil painting. This tells us something important about the artist's perspective. He has ennobled this scene with his painterly skills. It is a slice of Venetian life viewed through the lens of high art, blurring the boundaries between the fine and the everyday.