statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni. My fingers itched; I couldn’t wait to start sketching. But where to begin? It hardly mattered. In time, it would all make sense: I had decided to become a painter, not an architect – and Venice was responsible.
San Giorgio, 2009, by Susan Ennis
Palazzi, 2009. Collection of Mary Burnham
“Like an unfurled Chinese scroll, the façades stretch end-to-end.”
HEAVENLY MANSIONS
Its temples and its palaces did seem like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven.
– Percy Bysshe Shelley2
Idon’t know what civilization is,” the eminent art historian Sir Kenneth Clark famously remarked, while looking at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, “but I do know that I am standing in front of it.”3 The same could be said of the Ca’ d’Oro in Venice, and there is no mystery why. It is a great building, not merely an excellent example of High Gothic – it would be beautiful in any style – but also because its proportions are perfect. Once the home of the Contarini family that supplied Venice with eight doges, the palazzo is not as big as some of its neighbors on the Grand Canal, but it doesn’t need to be. Its façade, a hybrid of Moorish and Byzantine detailing, absolves it. Even its asymmetry beguiles.
I’ve painted the Ca’ d’Oro, or House of Gold, both in oil and watercolor, but I’d be happy just drawing it in pencil. John Ruskin’s The Casa d’Oro, rendered in 1845, is an inspiration. Though better known as an art critic, Ruskin was indeed a superb watercolorist in the finest British tradition, and this work, done on toned paper with gouache highlights, is a master class in technique. To some it looks unfinished – Ruskin left many areas untouched – but to my eyes it intimates just the opposite. Less is more, and he allows the viewer to fill in the rest.
I wondered where Ruskin sat when he painted this unique work. Judging from its perspective, it may have been done from a boat, facing the palazzo. Turner, the Romantic landscapist known as the “painter of light,” hired gondolas to get the angle he wanted. Though tempted, I avoided availing myself of such expedients – and got lucky instead. Late one afternoon, walking near the Rialto, Venice’s most famous bridge, I detected a narrow causeway directly across the canal from the Ca’ d’Oro. There, in the sun, regal, ageless, and just like a postcard, I saw the greatest house in Venice.
I started to sketch rapidly, first drawing the second floor of the palazzo, with its intricately carved balcony and french doors; then adding the delicate finials at the top course. I carefully rendered the fenestration, which looked like tapestry. I used blues for the shade and avoided browns, which might muddy it. I applied one layer of wash for the background, then two. As daylight waned, the race was on. If I faltered now I had no one to blame but myself.
I laid my pad on the ground, stood back, and critiqued my sketch. Reasonably satisfied, I resumed working. Then a vaporetto, the ubiquitous small ferryboat peculiar to Venice, rolled in, heaving its rusty bulk into the dock like a wounded whale. The noise was jarring, an accepted abrasion in a city where waterbuses are the means of public transport. I had no choice but to wait for it to depart. When it finally did, the motor sprayed water all over my picture. My colors started to bleed together: ultramarine, alizarin, and yellow ocher were suddenly one. Miraculously, the picture was improved. Only in Venice!
Nearby, the fish merchants at the Pescheria were oblivious to my creative endeavor. Instead they were busy buying and selling the latest catch in the city’s oldest open-air market. Squid, sardines, skate, sole, and crab lay heaped on long tables under an arched loggia. I took a break to watch them work. The merchants’ sunburnt arms strained to lift the heavy crates; suddenly my backpack felt weightless in comparison. “Scusi!” one fisherman bellowed, as he pushed me aside with an armload of fresh seppioline. I quickly stepped back, and watched the frenetic activity from a safe distance. Then, as if a director had yelled “Cut!,” the hour struck noon and everyone disappeared – mysteriously vanishing like in The Cat in the Hat. Empty cartons and crumpled wax paper lay strewn in piles on the worn stone pavement. The place was empty, ready to begin anew the next day.
Where had everyone gone? Italians in general, and Venetians in particular, savor their siesta, the long afternoon repast they enjoy until as late as four o’clock. Laborers, lawyers, doctors, shopkeepers – even artists – rush back to their families and enjoy homemade dishes, freshly prepared from the daily market, of prosciutto and melon, mozzarella and tomato, breaded veal – and of course vino. In the summer, the men take off their jackets, and women remove their high heels. They sit leisurely outside on wooden chairs, and eat and eat and eat. Sufficiently gorged, they refrain from dessert (sweets are less of an obsession than in America) and take a long nap instead. Nothing short of an earthquake will change this ritual. It is as sacred as the altar. Later, when the meal is done, kisses are heartily exchanged on both cheeks and the Venetians stagger back to work – a little tipsy, but restored. Not a bad life, I thought. I could learn something from this. My ambition, to produce as many paintings as possible in the shortest amount of time, sometimes prevents me from truly seeing the city – its atmosphere, its people, its life – which is as inspirational as the architecture itself.
Taking this cue, I created my own improvised siesta, found a comfortable corner between two buildings, and sat on a triangular stone bench built into the wall. These benches exist throughout the city, a gesture by Renaissance architects to provide citizens with a place to rest tired feet. Usually a tiny statue of the Virgin Mary is perched above, suggesting this act of charity had divine precedent. The seat was small, but it was just enough to relish my panini with peppered ham and Bel Paese cheese, smothered in olive oil. A bottle of refreshing Limonata, a sparkling lemonade, topped it off.
After digesting my meal, I wandered nearby to San Giacomo di Rialto, reputed to be the oldest church in Venice. It was built in 1287 for the ancestors of these same fishermen, and its pink stucco façade had three bells at the top, like a Spanish mission. Upon my entering the building and settling in one of the pews, the noise from the street abruptly ceased. The chaos outside was miraculously converted into cool, dim, and soundproof serenity. A cleric closed the heavy metal doors of the entrance and a muted thud echoed throughout the chamber. Variegated light passed through the half-moon window near the nave. I felt as if I had stumbled into the closet in C.S. Lewis’s fantasy The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Looking around the church, first at the Renaissance paintings, then at the marble pediments, I was enveloped by one of those discoveries I’ve since come to expect in the dense, history-laden city of Venice. And though London, New York, Paris, and my hometown, Boston, have rich, eminently explorable architectural backdrops, Venice has one great transformative advantage: Mediterranean light. Startling at every turn, it surprises even the most jaded scholar.
Backtracking to the Ca’ d’Oro, I surveyed it with fresh eyes. Its Gothic details are what give Venice its venerable cast. The city, after all, is medieval. Some of these details are specific to the Ca’ d’Oro, but many, such as the pointed arches and fine tracery, are to be found in various incarnations throughout the city’s six sestieres, or districts. A Darwinian evolution is at work here: those decorative motifs that survive have clearly stood the test of
