ain. The annual fete of the Confraternity of
the Carita takes place at the Scuola di San Rocco, and Canale paints the
old Renaissance building which shelters so much of Tintoretto's finest
work, decorated with ropes of greenery and gay with flags,[7] while
Tiepolo has put in the red-robed, periwigged councillors and the gazing
populace. Near it in the National Gallery hangs a "Regatta" with its
array of boats, its shouting gondoliers, and its shadows lying across
the range of palaces, and telling the exact hour of the day that it was
sketched in; or, again, the painter has taken peculiar pleasure in
expressing quiet days, with calm green waters and wide empty piazzas,
divided by sun and shadow, with a few citizens plodding about their
business in the hot midday, or a quiet little abbe crossing the piazza
on his way to Mass. Canale has made a special study of the light on wall
and facade, and of the transparent waters of the canals and the azure
skies in which float great snowy fleeces.

[7] It is thought that it may have been painted from his studio.

His second visit to England was paid in 1751. He was received with open
arms by the great world, and invited to the houses of the nobility in
town and country. The English were delighted with his taste and with the
mastery with which he painted architectural scenes, and in spite of
advancing years he produced a number of compositions, which commanded
high prices. The Garden of Vauxhall, the Rotunda at Ranelagh, Whitehall,
Northumberland House, Eton College, were some of the subjects which
attracted him, and the treatment of which was signalised by his calm and
perfect balance. He made use of the camera ottica, which is in principal
identical with the camera oscura. Lanzi says he amended its defects and
taught its proper use, but it must be confessed that in the careful
perspective of some of his scenes, its traces seem to haunt us and to
convey a certain cold regularity. Canale was a marvellous engraver.
Mantegna, Bellini, and Titian had placed engraving on a very high level
in the Venetian School, and though at a later date it became too
elaborate, Tiepolo and his son brought it back to simplicity. Canale
aided them, and his _eaux-fortes_, of which he has left about thirty,
are filled with light and breadth of treatment, and he is particularly
happy in his brilliant, transparent water.

The high prices Canale obtained for his pictures in his lifetime led to
the usual i