May 6 Venice: Galleria d'Accademia and Ca’Rezzonico

Ian writes:

Today we continued our Venice exploration by visiting the Academe and Ca’Rezzonico Palazzos and art museums.  The Academe houses artwork stretching from the medieval period to the 17^th C.  The Ca’Rezzonico houses Venetian artwork from the 17/18^th C.  The Academe is housed in a Palazzo, but is a typical art gallery, while the Ca’Rezzonico has rooms set up containing original and period furniture and other items, as well as the silk patterned fabric on the walls.

Dorothy checking out a gilt alterpiece.

The Academe traces art through the time period mentioned, so the earlier periods are represented by religious works.  There is a room full of tryptichs and alter screens with gold leaf galore and as many depictions of the Ascension, the Annunciation, Madonna and Child, the Marriage of Catherine, and poor San Sebastian that you could imagine.

Alanna's favourite painting:  The Marriage of St. Catherine by Bellini

Margaret's favourite:  the Assumption.  I like the red shoes that Gabriel is wearing and the furnishings in the house.

I'm fairly sure that this is a great great grandmother of Alanna.   Her grandomother IS Italian, after all.

 As you move forward through time from the 1300’s to the 1400’s and later the works become less rigid and stylized and more natural, eventually giving way to realistic portraiture and mythological subject matter.

This is really a case where the pictures should speak for themselves, so you will have to wait until we have a better internet connection.

Alanna and Margaret went on to the Ca d’Oro Museum, since it was their last chance to see it, while Ian and the ladies went back to the apartment.  Ian went off to mail some postcards for Dorothy, and saw San Zaccaria -- not just the church, but the actual body -- and another saint as well.  Margaret and Alanna took the vaporetto to Ca d’Oro, only to find a sign on the door that said “Closed May 6 for the sake of lack of staff.”  They were forced to buy gelato and walk back to the apartment, but didn’t realize how much faster walking can be than taking the winding Grand Canal by boat, and overshot our neighbourhood by quite a bit.  Luckily, even backtracking is fun in Venice.

Reunited at the apartment, we went for a wander around San Marco, then went and bought traditional Italian candy: Torrone, hazelnut brittle, and almond brittle.  We decided to “eat in” this evening, and enjoyed sandwhiches in the apartment.  Right now we are going through our museum catelogues, and we are so tired that everything is hilarious to us, even though it probably isn’t.  For example, a picture of Homer by Venezione was referred to as a Venetian Blind”.  Ian has just explained that the allegorical picture we thought was “Don’t carry people who carry snakes around in a conch shell” is somehow actually “envy”.

Tomorrow we go to the islands of Murano, Burano, and Torcello.