Luca Carlevarijs (Udine 1663 - Venice 1730)

Luca Carlevarijs, son of painter and architect Giovanni Leonardo, was born in Udine in 1663 but moved to Venice aged 16, together with his sister Cassandra. His style was strongly influenced by the work of the Dutch Bamboccianti, encountered during a stay in Rome towards the turn of the century, and notably by Gaspar van Wittel’s luminous compositions. This led Carlevaryijs to abandon the genre painting of his youth to specialize in vedutism.
His meeting with Johann Anton Eismann, who was in Venice from 1685 to 1700, and with van Wittel, who spent 1697-98 in the city, persuaded him to concentrate exclusively on the painting of vedute and capricci (architectural fantasies). He was a member of the Fraglia (corporation) of Venetian painters from 1708 to 1713 and again from 1726 to 1728 and was the most popular landscape painter in Venice in the first two decades of the century. His work was much admired by foreign tourists, mostly English, passing through the city. Over the years he was gradually cast into the shade by his young pupil Canaletto. In 1728 he began to suffer spreading paralysis, leading to his death in Venice in 1730.