Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Veduta

Veduta


A veduta is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting of a cityscape. Prior to the arrival of photography, aristocratic patrons coveted vedute by Canaletto (1697-1768) and other leading Italian masters and were ready to pay exhorbitant sums for them. Canaletto's vedute are, to quote Lydia Cochrane, "inspired by a grandiose conception of the urban scene" of Venice and London, two cities where Canaletto spent most of his life.

One of archetypal examples of the genre is Canaletto's view of London, entitled The Thames and the City of London from Richmond House. Measuring 105 by 117,5 centimeters, the painting was commissioned from Canaletto by the Duke of Richmond in 1747 and still remains in the personal collection of the Dukes of Richmond, exhibited at Goodwood House, West Sussex, UK.

Canaletto's painting is a unique testimony to the appearance of the British capital some 250 years ago. The painter meticulously represented people strolling along the quay and boats coarsing across the river. Every detail is rendered with the same cool precision. The wall of Richmond House, represented on the left, is intended as a curtain revealing a theatrical view of the British capital in all its everyday complexity. From this point opens a vast vista of the river. Our gaze follows the wide expanse of the Thames, breeming with boats, towards the majestic outline of St Paul's Cathedral, which dominates the skyline, while other church steeples, barely seen at a distance, increase the feeling of spatial depth.

This is the highest resolution scan of the painting I could procure a year ago. I think it nicely illustrates the article about veduta. -- Ghirla -трёп-  20:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Nominate and support. -- Ghirla -трёп-  20:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Where is this from? If I go above 100% zoom I get jpg artifacts galore. I wonder if this can be saved at a higher quality. ~ trialsanderrors 20:26, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I provided the source in the last passage. Sorry, perhaps I don't understand anything, but why should you want to go above 100% zoom? Is the resolution too small for your screen? -- Ghirla -трёп-  21:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It's a good way to spot quality issues. Oppose, great painting, but a 127K image doesn't do it justice. ~ trialsanderrors 21:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * While we are on this subject, could you refer me to a specific guideline which specifies the lower threshold for the size and/or resolution of a FPC? If it is 500K I will not bother nominating 450K images next time, because preparing each nomination takes time and energy. Thanks, Ghirla  -трёп-  21:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * That really depends on the amount of detail in the image, but a 1000x1000 image with lots of detail is probably about 500-800K when compressed at high quality. My guess is that this one has been compressed at level 5/12, which simply isn't enough. Just look at the image with a standard viewing program that lets you zoom in and you'll see the square jpeg artifacts. I wonder if you can contact the Web Gallery guys and ask for a better compression in return for attribution. ~ trialsanderrors 22:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose Unfortunately I can see the artifacts without zooming in. Leon 22:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose Did Canaletto really paint a heavily sloping horizon? Spoils it for me even if he did paint that way. - Adrian Pingstone 10:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose Agree with the above. Looking at the thumb only, I first thought this was an ill-composed photo. In full size, I see it's an ill-composed painting... --Janke | Talk 14:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Nomination withdrawn. -- Ghirla -трёп-  15:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)