Venice's romance charms artists & collectors: Venice's reflective canals, cobblestone streets and unique architecture inspire artists and art-lovers alike - venice

Venice was more than just a city to artist James McNeill Whistler. In a sense, it saved his life. In September 1879, the 45-year-old painter boarded a night train from Paris to Venice for a three-month stay--long enough to complete a commissioned set of 12 etchings. But when he set foot in the romantic city, Whistler's three-month trip turned into a 14-month journey--one that both redefined his work and his life.

Fueled by visions of Venice's winding canals and floating gondolas, its vivid colors and unique architecture, Whistler, who was near bankruptcy at the time, used this stay to create some of the most profound work of his career. When he returned to London some 14 months later, tucked away in his luggage were more than 50 etchings and 100 pastels depicting familiar sights such as Riva degli Schiavoni, San Marco and out-of-the-way scenes in secret gardens and behind lantern-lit windows. Venice had inspired Whistler like nothing had before--helping him to not only rebuild his reputation as an artist in both London and Paris but to launch the most pivotal period of his career.

But Whistler is not alone.

Talk to artists all over the world, and they gush about Venice--a city some say they wanted to paint before they even traveled there. Whether they talk about the architecture, the colors, the water or the city's winding, narrow streets, the reaction is always the same: utter awe.

"Oh my gosh, it's just beautiful," said painter Alex Krajewski, a watercolorist who has channeled his detailed, colorful work into a Venetian series. "I've almost never seen anything so beautiful as Venice. The colors and the reflection of the water are just breathtaking. It's something that doesn't appear anywhere else in the world."

"You have the canals with still water that acts as a mirror, and you see a very clear reflection of anything that is there, whether it's a bridge or a building," said Bob Pejman, a romantic realist whose style is influenced by artists such as Sir Alma-Tadema and Thomas Cole.

"The reflectivity of the water is the secret," agreed Dika D'Angelo, vice president of Adtech Communications Inc., an art publishing company in Fallbrook, Calif., that carries several artists who paint Venice. "The water kind of sparkles. And you can see the buildings above and below."

"You have a combination of classical architecture reflecting in the water with gondolas and other boats traveling through them," added Pejman. "There are no roads, no cars, nobody drives. The only way to get around is by walking or by gondola. There's a romantic sense to it. It's almost like a movie set."

Northern-California painter Deborah Haeffele agreed. "Two years ago, my husband and I went on an anniversary trip to Italy and toured Tuscany, Florence and ended up in Venice," she said. "And, oh my goodness, Venice just gives you a whole different feeling ... We were laughing with each other. We thought of it as being an Italian Disney World. It's so magical, it almost doesn't seem real."

The magic that lures artists to both visit and paint the city--and people to yearn for art that depicts it--is both real and imagined. Haeffele, whose regional landscapes emphasize both color and light, is particularly drawn to the city's architecture. "In Venice, you find some of the most stunning architecture in the world," she said. "The incredible combination of the buildings and the water makes for an interesting [marriage] of line and fluidity and light."

But Pejman said it's the geography of the city--the way it's laid out, the way the canals wind into oblivion, the way the buildings line up here and there--that pushes him to fill in the missing part of the picture with his mind. "On Fifth Avenue in New York, everything is neat and organized and arranged in straight lines," Pejman explained. "There are no straight lines in Venice. Every canal twists and bends. And every building has a different angle. There's a sense of mystery. You wonder what is beyond the bridge, where the twisting and bending is going. If you go down the canal," he asked, "where are you going to end up?"

Venice conjures up romantic feelings like these--feelings Krajewski said he felt the moment he arrived. "While Paris is a city that is alive all the time, you almost have a feeling sometimes that Venice is asleep," he said. "You see the tourists, of course. But when you go there off-season, there's almost nobody there. It's a sleeping beauty, in a sense."

Listen to Krajewski's memory of his first visit and idealistic romance comes to mind. "I went there off-season," he said. "The weather was just perfect. The sunlight was just perfect. The colors were just great. I only had one day of sunlight really. The rest was fogged. But it was a beautiful day, and it just got me."

The colors, he said, are what struck him most. "Very warm, muted, sienna-type colors," he described. "Those are the colors I like. Brown and yellow and orange. Colors that have been tarnished a little by time."

The colors impressed Haeffele as well. "The colors they paint their houses are just so dynamic," she said. "You'll see gold with blue and green shutters. Colors that we wouldn't use with our conservative style. And the color of the water--it's aquamarine in certain kinds of light. It's got this green-blue quality to it."

But the water affects the city in a unique way, as well. The rise and fall of the tide around the buildings, as well as the fact that the city's architecture has been neglected, gives the city character some can't resist. "The fact that the city hasn't been kept up adds to the romantic quality of it," Pejman said. "You see stucco peeling off the buildings, exposed brick. You can almost see the passage of time, which makes it more interesting to paint."

Krajewski agreed. "It's very picturesque with the plaster falling off the brick," he said. "All the colors and the oldness of it."

This neglect often pushes Pejman to create a picture that's there and isn't there--all at the same time. "I don't paint scenes exactly how I see them," he said. "I try to enhance the romantic side of them. For example, if I'm painting Venice and there are signs on the walls that indicate contemporary life, I remove them and enhance the romantic side. If there's a balcony with flowers, I make the balcony overflow with flowers. I exaggerate. It's almost like I travel into the psyche of people, asking them [to describe] the most romantic place they'd want to be in Venice. Then I picture that and execute it." And what has he found? "People don't remember the graffiti," he said. "They remember the gondola."

Kim Smith, gallery director of Sargents Fine Arts in Maui, Hawaii, which carries Pejman's work, said that while only half of the people who buy pieces of art revolving around the city of Venice have actually been there, and those who have been there appreciate his additions. "One thing people will say when they look at his work is, `We don't remember it being that beautiful,'" she said. "But that is one of the gifts of an artist. He can paint it as he would like to see it." But at the same time, she added, "Bob's style is very unique and makes you feel like you're there. It's like a window into a beautiful world."

Haeffele editorializes as well in her art. When she visited Venice, she shot 40 rolls of film, took the film home and used her memory, the pictures and sketches of particular scenes to create a painting. "I don't just depict a photograph," she said. "I spend a lot of time figuring out what to eliminate, what to add, what to change to make it more believable than the photographs and more provocative than the photograph. Otherwise, you might as well just have the photograph."

Why do people yearn for pieces of art that depict Venice? Ask these artists, and themes of romance and time gone by repeatedly come up.

"I think it's a yearning to connect to a more ancient time," Haeffele said.

Pejman agreed. "One minute, a gondola with two lovers is going down the canal, and a minute later, it's not there and something else is taking place," he said. "It could be happening today, or it could have happened 100 years ago."

But Krajewski brings it back to the heart. "They long for it. They miss it," he said. "They have it in their heart."

Cities of Inspiration is ABN's series spotlighting cities worldwide that have repeatedly served as subjects for artists. Do you have an idea for the next City of Inspiration? E-mail [email protected].

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