Canaletto (Antonio Canal)

Giovanni Antonio Canal, better known as Canaletto (Venice, 17 or 18 October 1697 - Venice, 19 April 1768), was an Italian painter and engraver best known for his vedute. His pictures combine architecture and nature in topographical representations shaped by a highly refined atmospheric rendering, carefully chosen light conditions, and an almost scientific attention to perspective. He was one of the great masters of eighteenth-century Venetian view painting and at times made use of the camera obscura in his work.