937. VENICE: SCUOLA DI SAN ROCCO.
Canaletto[198] (Venetian: 1697-1768). See 127.
The principal building is the Scuola of the religious fraternity of St. Roch—"an interesting building of the early Renaissance (1517), passing into Roman Renaissance," and, "as regards the pictures it contains (by Tintoret), one of the three most precious buildings in Italy" (Stones of Venice, Venetian Index). From the adjoining Church of St. Roch, the Holy Thursday procession of the Doges and Officers of State, together with the members of the Fraternity, is advancing under an awning on its way to St. Mark's. Notice the carpets hung out of the windows—a standing feature, this, in Venetian gala decorations from very early times (see, for instance, No. 739).[199] Notice, also, the pictures displayed in the open air—a feature which well illustrates the difference between the later "easel pictures" and the earlier pictures intended to serve as architectural decorations. "A glance at this picture is sufficient to show how utterly the ordinary oil painting fails when employed as an architectural embellishment. Pictures which were to adorn and form part of a building had to consist of figures, separated one from another, all standing in simple and restful attitudes, and all plainly relieved against a light ground" (Conway: Early Flemish Artists, p. 270). Apart from one of the conditions of early art thus suggested, the picture is interesting as showing how in the eighteenth century in Italy, as in the thirteenth, art was part and parcel of the life of the people. Cimabue's pictures were carried in procession; and here in Canaletto's we see Venetian "old masters" hung out to assist in the popular rejoicing.