Tagged With: Venice

View of Venice (Detail)

View of Venice (Detail)

View of Venice (Detail)

Dorothy and I went to the National Gallery of Art today. We’ve been enough ties we generally know our way around but there are always small changes to what’s on display. This year’s big surprise was a woodcut that represents a view of Venice. I took a few detail shots but somehow managed to miss getting an overall shot but there’s a very good image on Wikipedia. The sign for this work read as follows:

Jacopo de’ Barbari
Venetian, (c. 1460/1470 – 1516)

View of Venice
1500
woodcut on six sheets of laid paper

National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection

View of Venice was unprecedented in scale and ambition. To make his drawings, Jacopo de’ Barbari relied upon the work of surveyors, who likely took sightings from bell towers across Venice. They borrowed tools from other trades: compasses and astrolabes were used for navigation, and instructions for measuring angles and distances existed in treatises on gunnery. De’ Barbari’s genius lay in being able to integrate these views to form both an overview perspective and a city map. Master woodcarvers then used his drawings to create blocks for printing. The project took three years to complete.

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Venice Puzzle

Venice Puzzle

Venice Puzzle

Our most recent puzzle adventure was this scene from Venice. As you might imagine, the clouds and sky were the most difficult part, and took us a while after the buildings had been completed and the water in the foreground got filled in. But, as it usually the case, giving it a little attention each day, finding one piece now and then, eventually it got finished. We have two more puzzles on-deck and will start the first of those shortly. We find it mentally stimulating and something we can easily do easily while chatting.

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