Guardi, Francesco (1712-1793), Italian painter, best-known member of a family of painters that included Giovanni Antonio, Francesco's brother. Francesco was most famous for his rococo landscapes of Venice.

Early in his career, Francesco and his two brothers produced numerous paintings of all types for churches, palaces, and private patrons in Venice and its environs.

In the 1750s, however, Francesco began to paint vedute (views, usually including architectural elements) in the manner of his great predecessor Canaletto. Guardi retained the scenic precision of the architectural canvases of Canaletto, but introduced a liveliness of line and color and a heightened mood of fantasy.

The results, as in the dazzling Piazza San Marco Decorated for the Feast of theAscension (1775?, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon), were unsurpassed romantic evocations of Venice.

With vivid, sketchy brushstrokes, Guardi peopled his cityscapes with grandiose processions and brightly costumed revelers, bathed in a shimmering, watery light presaging the effects achieved by the 19th-century impressionists