Vienna, Dominican Church

The view of what is today Vienna’s Postgasse depicts on the left the façade of the Dominican Church, which was built between 1631 and 1634, on the right the long façade of the Jesuit Seminary, and in the background the Jesuit Observatory. This picture illustrates Bellotto’s compositional principles in a particularly clear manner: he works with sharp contrasts of light and dark and uses light and shadow as compositional elements. Thus the regular façade on the right is given structure by the distinct shadows of the church across from it.