Naughty but nice

WE British have never been very good at enjoying ourselves. Perhaps

that's why, traditionally, we escape to Venice at the drop of a hat.

Stiff upper lip puritanism may also account for the fact that the

ambitious blockbuster exhibition at London's Royal Academy till December

14, The Glory of Venice 1700-1800, is being fashionably disparaged, even

slagged off.

Don't listen to them. The Glory of Venice is a joy; an unmissible, if

indulgent, experience. Savour this panoply of exquisite, beautiful

pictures by a galaxy of genius: a constellation comprising Tiepolo,

Canaletto, Guardi, Canova and Piranesi, among others. If you have a

single romantic bone in your body, you will love this show.

Nearly 300 magical Venetian paintings, drawings and prints, both

sacred and profane, conjure up visions of beauty, luxury, intrigue and

architectural magnificence. For centuries, this beguiling city attracted

visitors to its piazzas, palaces, canals and lagoons for seasonal

spectacles, lavish regattas, colourful carnivals -- plus masked balls

that must have made the swinging sixties look like a moderator's tea

party.

Nowadays we capture its picturesque corners on camera. In the

eighteenth century, Canaletto and Guardi busily recorded its radiant

views on canvas; Tiepolo and Piazzetta superbly decorated churches and

palaces; while Longi caught the life of the leisured class who thronged

the coffee houses (Florian's opened in 1720), the operas and 130

gambling casinos or frequented the endless round of festivals, pageants

and carnivals which so delighted the hearts of the Venetians and where

the anonymity of the mask led -- not surprisingly -- to a degree of

promiscuity.

For La Serenissima, That Most Serene State, was not only, according to

Byron, the Sea-Sodom, but a floating stage, an open air theatre of a

magnificence and vitality seldom surpassed. It was prosperous and

peaceful till 1797 when Napoleon marched into the city and burned the

Doge's state barge, (the Bucintoro, seen in many pictures here); yet the

legendary grandeur and splendour of Venice did survive. The city we know

now is topographically not that different from eighteenth century Venice

-- even if not so cheap. ''There is no question, a man can live better

in Venice for #100 a year than in London for #500,'' wrote a British

visitor in 1787.

These Venetian artists drew on inspiration from their sixteenth

century predecessors Titian, Tintoretto, Bellini, Giorgione and Veronese

to produce stunning, seductive decoration for church and palace. The

star here is Tiepolo, the greatest painter of the century, represented

by 40 works. He is a profoundly serious, but not a solemn, artist. The

Academy's huge main gallery is devoted to a rococo display of his

pyrotechnical magnificence where Scotland's Finding of Moses of 1740, on

loan from Edinburgh, is certainly the knockout picture. It's the most

important Tiepolo in Britain, and here, alongside loans from America,

Germany, Italy, Hungary and Spain, it still shines.

A biblical story told in high Renaissance fashion, the scene being

turned into a marvellous costume ball halfway between fantasy and

reality, it was probably painted for a reception room of a Venetian

palace. It shows a young girl amazed by the appearance of the beautiful

princess and her train who have come to view the crying baby. Pharaoh's

daughter, dressed in a sixteenth century Venetian yellow silk gown, is

juxtaposed with an old nurse in big lace collar. Servants, guards, page,

court dwarf, halberdier and dog are captured in swift, confident,

lively, feathery brushstrokes.

With his instinctive gift for draughtsmanship and colour, his boldness

and speed of execution, a master in every medium from fresco to

caricature and etching, and able and willing to tackle god and godesses,

saints and sinners (St James of Compostela on his white charger; Rinaldo

and Armida in her enchanted garden), Tiepolo was quickly a success.

Piazzetta, hardly known in the UK, is a revelation; a fecund

draughtsman and forceful, profound painter, ''a colossus bestriding the

artistic scene, acknowledged as great by his fellows.'' This

contemporary of Tiepolo confers an emotional intensity in his oils of St

Francis in Ecstasy or St James Led to Martyrdom, to create large scale

majestic mythological and religious pictures.

Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757) was a remarkable artist, feted in Italy

and Paris, and receiver of many important pastel portrait commissions

from European royalty. Many of the artists worked together; many were

related. Rosalba's sister married Pelligrini; Guardi's sister married

Tiepolo and Bellotto was Canaletto's nephew.

While Canaletto is well known partly because he came to London for

nine years from 1745 and because he has so many pictures in the Queen's

collection (four on loan here among 20 works including Regatta on the

Grand Canal 1733), Bellotto is less famous, unless you know Warsaw. No

mere acolyte of his uncle, Bellotto's range of style and subject is

infinitely broader. Summoned to Dresden and Poland by their kings, he

also painted Vienna and Munich. As Polish court painter for 12 years, he

did 26 passionate, animated views of Warsaw for its castle where you can

see them now. These were used as models for the reconstruction of Warsaw

after the war.

While Bellotto searched for truth, many Venetians adored the imaginary

and fanciful, which developed into a charming speciality, a style of

idyll called a 'caprice' where romantic peasants cavort amid decaying

ruins. Guardi excelled here, but Piranesi gave his imginary architecture

a menacing touch.

Amid the many celebrated here, Canova, he of the #7.6m Three Graces

controversy, is the Venetian stonemason who left for Rome, reacting

against frivolity with cool neo-classicism. As Browning would have it:

''And what of Venice and her people . . .when the kissing had to stop.''

By 1800, a glorious hedonistic age had ended.