Exhibition: Legacy of an Italian by choice | nd-aktuell.de

The viewer’s gaze falls on the panorama of the Grand Canal in Venice, which makes a slight curve and extends to the Rialto Bridge in the background. On both sides of the river the magnificent facades of the palazzi, while boats rest at the piers or traghetti, the gondola ferries typical of Venice, glide across the water. It’s normal everyday life. What do the figures in the barges depicted in different postures have to say? The painter illuminated the picture space evenly and chose a raised horizon line in order to show the picture’s events in all details in wide narrative spaces. This is characteristic of the Venetian Bellotto, who also called himself Canaletto and who gave 18th century Venice its everlasting charm with his vedute (city views).

The collection of contemporary paintings that the Berlin merchant Sigismund Streit, who emigrated to Venice in 1709, brought together in the lagoon city contains 48 pictures by Venetian painters alone, including these depictions of the Grand Canal and the “View of the Campo di Rialto” by Canaletto. He donated it to the Berlin High School at the Gray Monastery, which he had once attended. In 1964 the high school made the Streitsche Foundation available to the Berlin Picture Gallery as a permanent loan. This enabled them to expand their collection of Venetian paintings, which spans five centuries – from the Trecento to the Cettecento, from Lorenzo Veneziano to Titian to Canaletto and Guardi.

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In 1739 Streit commissioned his portrait from Jacopo Amigoni in Venice. He chose the representative half-length format and depicted the sitter in a relaxed position, sitting in an armchair in his dressing gown. Streit then acquired ten more paintings by Amigoni with themes from mythology, but also from the Old Testament. While the collection was created without a recognizable concept until 1750, it gained a personal character with the acquisition of Venetian vedute, which was largely determined by Streit’s idea of ​​​​founding the Gray Monastery high school. He gave precise instructions on how his foundation should be used and expanded for the instruction and instruction of young people.

Despite losses from the bombing raids at the end of the Second World War, relocations and the subsequent return of the rescued holdings to Berlin, one of the oldest foundations was preserved. It was reunited after the reunification of Berlin.

With Canaletto, the viewer is constantly encouraged to look closely and interpret the scenery. In a figure in a veduta, for example, you think you can recognize the person who commissioned Streit himself. There are series of ceremonial and festival depictions, allegories of the strength and wealth of Venice, beginning with two depictions of Venetian folk festivals. Its symmetry and the strongly flowing lines of the architecture are just as worth highlighting here as its narrative richness. They achieve the uniformly closed effect primarily through Canaletto’s choice of a low position at the viewer’s eye level. Without Streit’s collection, it can be assumed that Berlin would have far less to offer of the splendor and wealth of the Venetian school of the Settecento.

»From the Grand Canal to the Spree. The Streitsche Foundation for the Gray Monastery”, until September 29th, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

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