The earliest of these show the influence of Canaletto, but he gradually adopted a looser style characterized by spirited brush-strokes and freely imagined architecture.

His sister Maria Cecilia married the pre-eminent Veneto-European painter of his epoch, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

In 1763 he worked in Murano, in the church of San Pietro Martire, finishing a Miracle of a Dominican Saint clearly influenced by Alessandro Magnasco in its quasi-expressionistic style.

In 1782, Guardi was commissioned by the Venetian government six canvases to celebrate the visit of the Russian Grand Dukes to the city, of which only two remain, and two others for that of Pope Pius VI.

A stronger attention to colours is present in late works such as the Concerto of 80 Orphans of 1782, now in Munich, and in the Façade of Palace with Staircase in the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo.

[1]Guardi's painterly style is known as pittura di tocco (of touch) for its small dotting and spirited brush-strokes.

Canaletto, as a vedutista, concentrated on glamorous urban architecture erected by the Serene Republic; on the other hand, in Guardi, the buildings often appear to be melting and sinking into a murky lagoon.

The citizenry has shrunken to an impotent lilliputian crowd of "rubber-neckers", unable to rescue the crumbling Republic, as for example in the Fire in the Oil Depot in San Marcuola.