Francesco Guardi

The Scottish National Gallery is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, in a neoclassical building designed by William Henry Playfair, and first opened to the public in 1859. The gallery houses the Scottish national collection of fine art, including... Scottish and international art from the beginning of the Renaissance up to the start of the 20th century. The origins of Scotland's national collection lie with the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland, founded in 1819. It began to acquire paintings, and in 1828 the Royal Institution building opened on the Mound. In 1826, the Scottish Academy was founded by a group of artists as an offshoot of the Royal Institution, and in 1838 it became the Royal Scottish Academy . A key aim of the RSA was the founding of a national collection. It began to build up a collection and from 1835 rented exhibition space within the Royal Institution building. In the 1840s plans were put in place for a new building to house the RSA in a new building. William Henry Playfair was commissioned to prepare designs, and on 30 August 1850, Prince Albert laid the foundation stone.
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In the 15th century Venetian painting developed through influences from the Paduan School and Antonello da Messina, who introduced the oil painting technique of Early Netherlandish painting. It is typified by a warm colour scale and a picturesque use of colour. Among the leading early masters were... the Bellini and Vivarini families, followed by Giorgione and Titian, then Tintoretto and Veronese. In the 18th century Venetian painting had a final flowering in Tiepolo's decorative painting and Canaletto's and Guardi's panoramic views. But these are merely a few of the most outstanding in a great number of artists in the Venetian tradition, many originally from outside the Republic's territory. The extinction of the Republic by French Revolutionary armies in 1797 effectively brought the distinctive Venetian style to an end; it had at least arguably outlasted its rival Florence in that respect.
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