Count me as solidly opposed to the lavish praised being heaped upon this video study of Canaletto. It's a needlessly long exploration of an artist who, on the merits, is really a crashing bore. As an illustrator, Canaletto was highly skilled. But his fastidious, topographical style of landscape quickly wears out its welcome through the tedium of repetition. He painted views of the canals of Venice in a rigid style for more than 20 years of his life. That he was utterly hidebound reflects in his eventual relocation to London, which resulted in, you guessed it, his exact same thematic rendering of the Thames.
Beyond his bland art, Canaletto the man comes across as thoroughly uninvolving. The film has little to say about his training, or the subsequent legacy of his work among later generations of artists, and ascribes no intellectual, social or political gravity to him. The one interesting aspect of his history touched on by the film concerns his patron, a wealthy Englishman named Joseph Smith. By the middle of the movie, it's quite obvious that Smith's patronage is the source of Canaletto's fame, but that patronage was extended only because it made Smith a lot of money. Succinctly, Smith used his social position and influence as a tastemaker to pimp Canaletto's works as travel memorabilia to (primarily English) high society touring through Italy...all for a sizeable take from the sales. If not for Smith, Canaletto would today probably be comparatively obscure. It's worth noting that Canaletto died poor, while Smith prospered sumptuously in his life.
A solidly detailed telling of just the story of Smith and Canaletto could've been executed in 30 minutes or so, which would've resulted in a much richer film for both its focus on the most interesting documented facet of Canaletto and its avoidance of gratuitous adoration of his works. This burdensome production extends to about 90 minutes, owing to extraneous discussions of some of Canaletto's Venetian contemporaries and plenty of art school puffery about his "mastery".
