Caprice View with Ruins

This tiny picture, measuring only 10 by 6 cm, is framed with two other views of picturesque ruins in imaginary Italian settings (such paintings are known as capricci). One shows an elegant couple and the other depicts a man and child surrounded by soaring architecture. In the foreground of this scene, two figures – fishermen perhaps, or digging labourers – are hard at work beside the water, in the shadow of a classical arch.Guardi painted this on wood rather than on his traditional canvas support, probably because it was better suited to a picture of this size. His figures, evoked with the softest of touches of paint, have energy and movement, and even on this scale he has created an atmospheric scene – bright sunlight falls on the rich, crumbling red stone, overgrown with weeds.