Paintings of buildings have been around for a while! They came into prominence in 17th-century Holland where painters such as Vermeer began to explore their surroundings as subjects for their work. The following century, Antonio Canaletto, arguably the most famous painter of architectural scenes, brought the genre further into the spotlight and paved the way for the cityscape. Amongst the ways buildings were presented on canvas or paper was as a capriccio – fantasy arrangements of buildings, real or imagined, which were put together through a combination of study, knowledge and creativity.
My interest in painting complex architectural scenes started when I was working at Sir John Soane’s Museum where I was lucky enough to have access to that amazing collection of architectural drawings, paintings and models. It opened my mind to the possibilities of painting buildings and, as the collection has amongst its treasures capricci by the
