Oil paint on canvas
Italy
Tate Collection
Works with images
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
St Benedetto Looking towards Fusina
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
architecture
boat, gondola
canal
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
countries and continents
features
figure
group
groups
industrial
Italy
natural phenomena
people
places
reflection
society
sunset
times of the day
tower
townscapes / man-made features
transport: water
Venice, Canal della Giudecca
waterfront
<p>Turner’s ability to distill the spirit of place is captured in this painting. It is a view of Venice, looking from the Giudecca Canal towards Fusina on the mainland. There is, however, no church named San Benedetto at the scene. Turner’s stylistic treatment of colour, light and water skillfully gives the essence of how people felt about Venice. Critic John Ruskin wrote that ‘without one single accurate detail’ it was ‘the likest thing to what it is meant for ... of all that I have ever seen’.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
30 July 2001 – 30 June 2002
2002-06-30
30 July 2001 – 30 June 2002
2002-06-30
2001-07-30
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-07-30
Painting Venice
Collection based display
9 October 2003 – 30 May 2004
2004-05-30
9 October 2003 – 11 January 2004
2004-01-11
2003-10-09
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
15 February 2004 – 30 May 2004
2004-05-30
2004-02-15
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
2003-10-09
Turner and Venice
Exhibition
15 May 2004 – 16 May 2005
2005-05-16
15 May 2004 – 5 September 2004
2004-09-05
2004-05-15
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
http://www.ago.net
16 October 2004 – 16 January 2005
2005-01-16
2004-10-16
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
10 February 2005 – 16 May 2005
2005-05-16
2005-02-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-05-15
Turner Whistler Monet
Exhibition
25 July 2005 – 26 July 2009
2009-07-26
25 July 2005
2005-07-25
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-07-25
Romantic Painting in Britain
Collection based display
23 February 2010 – 30 May 2010
2010-05-30
23 February 2010 – 30 May 2010
2010-05-30
2010-02-23
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain)
2010-02-23
Monet and Abstraction
Loan-out
8 October 2011 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
8 October 2011 – 15 January 2012
2012-01-15
2011-10-08
Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)
11 February 2012 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
2012-02-11
Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart, Germany)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
2011-10-08
On the Other Side of Air:Later paintings by Turner, Monet, Twombly
Loan-out
8 October 2011 – 28 October 2012
2012-10-28
8 October 2011 – 8 January 2012
2012-01-08
2011-10-08
Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden)
11 February 2012 – 28 May 2012
2012-05-28
2012-02-11
Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart, Germany)
http://www.staatsgalerie.de/
29 June 2012 – 28 October 2012
2012-10-28
2012-06-29
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2011-10-08
Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings
Exhibition
21 April 2012 – 8 March 2020
2020-03-08
21 April 2012 – 8 March 2020
2020-03-08
2012-04-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-21
Travelling Light: European Travels
Collection based display
8 February 2013 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
8 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-08
Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide, Australia)
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au
4 June 2013 – 8 September 2013
2013-09-08
2013-06-04
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
8 October 2013 – 18 December 2013
2013-12-18
2013-10-08
Toyko Metropolitan Art Museum (Toyko, Japan)
1 January 2014 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
2014-01-01
Kobe City Museum (Kobe, Japan)
2013-02-08
J.M.W. Turner: Makings of a Master
Loan-out
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
10 September 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
2014-09-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-09-10
Late Turner: Painting Set Free
Exhibition
6 July 2019 – 2 May 2021
2021-05-02
15 October 2020 – 2 May 2021
2021-05-02
2020-10-15
Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (Québec, Canada)
http://www.mnba.qc.ca
2019-07-06
The Sea and the Alps: Turner's Quest for the Sublime
Tate partnerships & programmes
St Benedetto, Looking towards Fusina
support: 622 × 927 mm
frame: 872 × 1176 × 105 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<div class="text">
<p>Turner’s ability to distill the spirit of place is captured in this painting. It is a view of Venice, looking from the Giudecca Canal towards Fusina on the mainland. There is, however, no church named San Benedetto at the scene. Turner’s stylistic treatment of colour, light and water skillfully gives the essence of how people felt about Venice. Critic John Ruskin wrote that ‘without one single accurate detail’ it was ‘the likest thing to what it is meant for ... of all that I have ever seen’.</p>
</div>

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2020-07-01T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>406. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-st-benedetto-looking-towards-fusina-n00534" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00534</span></a>]<b> St. Benedetto, looking towards Fusina</b> Exh. 1843</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (534)</p>
<p>Canvas, 24 1/2 × 36 1/2 (62·5 × 92)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (one of 18–21, 36–40; see No. 383); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1968.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1843 (554); Amsterdam, Berne, Paris (repr.), Brussels, Liege (39), Venice (repr.) and Rome (repr.) (48) 1947–8; R.A. 1974–5 (535).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1843, 1860, 1857 and <i>Notes on his Drawings by Turner</i> 1878 (1903–12, iii, pp. 250, 546; vii, pp. 157–8; xiii, pp. 164–6, 454); Thornbury 1862, i, p. 348; 1877, p. 466; Hamerton 1879, pp. 266–7; Bell 1901, p. 148 no. 241; Armstrong 1902, p. 235; Finberg 1930, pp. 140, 144–8, 151, 157, pl. 27; Davies 1946, pp. 151, 186; Evans and Whitehouse 1956, p. 273; Davies 1959, pp. 98–9; Finberg 1961, p. 508 no. 555; Herrmann 1975, p. 51, pl. 164.</p>
<p>As Ruskin pointed out, the title is partly imaginary, there being no church of San Benedetto visible in this view looking west along the Canal della Giudecca towards Fusina. ‘The buildings on the right are also, for the most part, imaginary in their details, especially in the pretty bridge which connects two of their masses: and yet, without one single accurate detail, the picture is the likest thing to what it is meant for—the looking out of the Giudecca landwards, at sunset—of all that I have ever seen.’ In a letter to his father of 5 January 1850 Ruskin reported delightedly how he had seen a covered boat with a great curving rudder in the very place where Turner had shown one in his picture (presumably on the right, in the middle distance), and how, though this was no longer a regular service, it had been in Turner's day the regular cheap passage-boat to Padua via Fusina. ‘So it was by mere accident, a most lucky one, that I got this little illustration of Turner's putting everything in its own place.’ Thornbury, like the first official N.G. catalogue, calls it ‘“Approach to Venice, looking towards Fusina”, from a sketch made in 1839–40; sunset is approaching’. The sketch referred to is probably the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> of a similar view in the Turner Bequest, datable to 1840 (CCCXV-13).</p>
<p>This pictures does not seem to have attracted any individual comment in the press but it vied with <i>The Sun of Venice</i> (No. 402 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-sun-of-venice-going-to-sea-n00535" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00535</span></a>]) for first place in Ruskin's estimation. In his notes on the Turners shown at Marlborough House in 1856 he wrote, ‘Take it all in all, I think this is the best Venetian picture of Turner's which he has left to us.’ In 1856 the condition of the picture was, according to Ruskin, ‘tolerably safe. The writer of the notes in the published catalogue is mistaken in supposing that the upper clouds have changed in colour; they were always dark purple, edged with scarlet; but they have got chilled and opaque. The blue in the distance has altered slightly, making the sun too visible a spot; but the water is little injured, and I think it the best piece of surface <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> which Turner has left in oil colours’. Ruskin would, of course, have remembered how the picture had looked in 1843, but his later description (in his notes on his own Turner <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawings</span></a> of 1878) of the decay and ruin through cleaning and retouching of this and other Venetian oils seems exaggerated when one looks at them today after more recent treatment.</p>
<p>Robert Chignell, in his <i>J. M. W. Turner, R.A.,</i> 1902, referring to Ruskin's observations, states that ‘The gold of the water, the gold of the air, the amber flame are all gone, and even the boatman can only with difficulty be distinguished.’ Sir A.H. Church comments further on how, ‘in a group of small clouds near the top of the picture, where vermilion and lake have been introduced, the vermilion remains, but the lake is now a pale yellowish brown’ (<i>The Chemistry of Paints and Painting,</i> fourth ed. 1915, p. 335). In addition there is some discoloured meguilp. The wonder is how unified and tonally satisfactory the picture looks today.</p>
<p>A copy with variations by J.B.Pyne, signed and dated 1858, was sold at Christie's on 30 July 1959 (53; 27 × 35 in.). As in the case of other paintings by Turner exhibited in his lifetime or by the National Gallery from 1856, a number of other copies of various periods are known, usually by unidentifiable artists.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults architecture boat, gondola canal cities, towns, villages (non-UK) countries and continents features figure group groups industrial Italy natural phenomena people places reflection society sunset times of the day tower townscapes / man-made features transport: water Venice, Canal della Giudecca waterfront