File:Artgate Fondazione Cariplo - Brindisi Remo - Venezia.jpg

This work entered the collection from the antique market in 1991. The authentication on the back of the photograph of the painting in the Cariplo archive, dates its execution to that same year.

In the postwar years, after he had settled in Venice, Brindisi devoted himself to executing views of the lagoon and created a vast repertoire of monumental and tourist sites. These subjects were to remain constant throughout his production, resulting from an intense artistic research, which from his early Art Informel works developed his own signature style characterised by vibrant colours and a two-dimensional space.

This work dates from painter’s mature period, which is marked by a certain repetition of themes and a sometimes hasty execution. It depicts the Baroque church of Santi Simone e Giuda, also called San Simeon Piccolo [1], recognisable by its classical-style pronaos surmounted by a single dome that ends in a lantern with a statue of the redeemer. This is an unusual subject in the artist’s repertoire, which contains a large group of works depicting Santa Maria della Salute, his favourite Venetian church. Here the painter has constructed the landscape through horizontal planes and the rhythmic arrangement of coloured masses, from the lantern of the building in the extreme foreground, to the canal, the façade of the church and the blue sky dotted with white clouds. Unlike the other contemporary view of Venice in the Collection – a delightful, decorative image of the city on the lagoon – this painting has a dense, dark shadow reflected in the Canal Grande and there is a violent contrast between the acid yellow of the architecture and the blue of the sky and water.