Campanile of San Giorgio dei Greci, Venice

Carl Rotky

Styrian artist Carl Rotky had shown an early aptitude for the visual arts but was discouraged from pursuing them by his father, who wanted his son to become a doctor. After completing his studies in medicine at Charles University in Prague, he served as a surgeon in the First World War, and upon its conclusion he was allowed to return home to Graz where he set up a successful medical practice. It wasn’t until he’d earned a comfortable income that he began to seriously pursue art, and before long he was traveling abroad to capture the sights of Europe in oil paintings and color woodcuts - the latter becoming his primary medium.

In this subtly-hued nocturnal image, he’s depicted the Campanile of San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice, a 16th century belfry that sits along the rio dei Greci near the famed Bridge of Sighs. As with many towers in Venice, it leans ever so slightly and has done so since its construction. In Rotky’s image it is no less romantic for its flaws, surrounded as it is by a dusky green sky and offset by the illuminated windows reflected in the waters of the canal.