View of the Bacino Di San Marco from the Church and Island of San Giorgio Maggiore by Michele Marieschi

Michele Marieschi or Michele Giovanni Marieschi, also Michiel (1696 - – 18 January 1744), also known as ''Michiel'', was an Italian painter and engraver. He is mainly known for his landscapes and cityscapes (''

vedute A ''veduta'' (Italian for "view"; plural ''vedute'') is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting or, more often, print of a cityscape or some other vista. The painters of ''vedute'' are referred to as ''vedutisti''. Origins This genre ...

''), or views, mostly of

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

. He also created architectural paintings, which reveal his interest in stage design.Dario Succi. "Marieschi, Michele Giovanni." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 8 Dec. 2016

Biography

Architectural Fantasy with a Staircase in a Courtyard by Michele Marieschi

Marieschi was born in Venice in 1696 as the son of an engraver, who died when he was eleven. He probably trained either with

Gaspare Diziani Gaspare Diziani (1689 – 17 August 1767) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Roccoco period, active mainly in the Veneto but also in Dresden and Munich. The artist's canvas is the largest painting of the Hermitage Museum in St. Peters ...

,Martineau and Robison, 466 or

Canaletto Giovanni Antonio Canal (18 October 1697 – 19 April 1768), commonly known as Canaletto (), was an Italian painter from the Republic of Venice, considered an important member of the 18th-century Venetian school. Painter of city views or ...

, or both. According to his biography in Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi's ''Abecedario Pittorico'', published in Venice in 1753, he spent some time in Germany, where he may have worked as a stage designer. He returned to Venice by 1731, when he is recorded as a scene-painter, and in 1735 he worked on the "effects" for the funeral in

Fano Fano is a town and ''comune'' of the province of Pesaro and Urbino in the Marche region of Italy. It is a beach resort southeast of Pesaro, located where the '' Via Flaminia'' reaches the Adriatic Sea. It is the third city in the region by po ...

Maria Clementina Sobieska Maria Clementina Sobieska ( pl, Maria Klementyna Sobieska; 18 July 1702 – 18 January 1735) a titular queen of England, Scotland and Ireland by marriage to James Francis Edward Stuart, a Jacobite claimant to the British throne. The granddaughte ...

, wife of the Old Pretender. Under the influence of Marco Ricci and

Luca Carlevarijs Luca Carlevarijs or Carlevaris (20 January 1663 – 12 February 1730) was an Italian painter and engraver working mainly in Venice. He pioneered the genre of the cityscapes (''vedute'') of Venice, a genre that was later widely followed by artis ...

and encouraged by the success of

in the genre, he started to create '' capricci'' and vedute. Between 1735 and 1741 he was registered in the Venetian ''Fraglia de' Pittori'', or

painters' guild The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was ident ...

. One of Marieschi's sponsors at his wedding in 1737 was Gaspare Diziani. Although he initially produced '' capricci'' (i.e. fantastic, imaginary landscapes), he later painted more topographically accurate ''vedute''. One of his patrons was the noted collector

Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg Marshal Johann Matthias Reichsgraf von der Schulenburg (8 August 1661 – 14 March 1747) was a German aristocrat and general of Brandenburg-Prussian background who served in the Saxon and Venetian armies in the early 18th century and found a seco ...

, who bought twelve paintings between 1736–38, including two canvases for 50 and 55 gold

sequins A sequin () is a small, typically shiny, generally disk-shaped ornament. Sequins are also referred to as paillettes, spangles, or ''diamanté'' (also spelled ''diamante''). Although the words sequins, paillettes, lentejuelas, and spangles can ...

respectively. He drew on his scenery painting experience to "transform his urban views by using an exaggerated perspective that confers the novelty of a capricious invention even on scenes taken from life".

Michael Levey Sir Michael Vincent Levey, LVO, FBA, FRSL (8 June 1927 – 28 December 2008) was a British art historian and was the director of the National Gallery from 1973 to 1986. Biography Levey was born in Wimbledon, London, and grew up in Leigh-on-S ...

contrasts Marieschi's style with Canaletto's, noting that Marieschi's use of paint is livelier and fresher. He had a considerable influence on Francesco Guardi.Wittkower, 501, 503; Martineau and Robison, 466 Michele Marieschi Venezia Ponte Rialto

In 1741-42 Marieschi published a set of 21 prints of Venice, under the title of ''Magnificentiores Selectioresque Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus''; the title page featured a portrait of Marieschi by Angelo Trevisani.

References

Sources

* * *Martineau, Jane, and Robison, Andrew, ''The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century'', 1994, Yale University Press/ Royal Academy of Arts, (Catalogue for exhibition in London and Washington) * *

External links

*
www.artistarchive.com
A catalogue of the 21 plates from ''Magnificentiores Selectioresque Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus''. *
Canaletto
', a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Marieschi {{DEFAULTSORT:Marieschi, Michele 1710 births 1744 deaths 18th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Italian vedutisti Painters from Venice Landscape artists Italian engravers 18th-century Italian male artists