Veduta

The Ghent architect, draughtsman and engraver Lieven Cruyl (1640–1720) contributed to the development of the vedute during his residence in Rome in the late 17th century.

The genre was pioneered by Luca Carlevarijs, and its greatest practitioners belonged to the Canal and Guardi families of Venice.

Some of them went to work as painters in major capitals of Europe, e.g., Canaletto in London and his nephew Bernardo Bellotto in Dresden and Warsaw.

The Dutch painter Gaspar van Wittel (who worked in Rome, where he was known as Vanvitelli) and others painted veduta esatta, i.e. exact vedute, which was a topographically accurate depiction of a cityscape or monument and in which the human and animal figures played a secondary role.

In the later 19th century, more personal "impressions" of cityscapes replaced the desire for topographical accuracy, which was satisfied instead by painted, and later photographed, panoramas.