_Giuseppe Zais_ (Venetian: died 1784).
Zais, a Venetian, was a pupil of the Florentine landscape and
decorative painter Zuccarelli (1702-1788) who settled for many
years at Venice. Zuccarelli in 1752 came to this country, where
in 1768 he became an original member of the Royal Academy.
The works of Zais also for a time attracted the attention of
English amateurs, but he died a pauper in the hospital of
Treviso.
Amusing examples of the so-called "pastoral landscape," which found
favour in the last century--the landscape painted "in praise of
the country by men who lived in coffee-houses." Zais was nearly
contemporary with Longhi, and shows us the same Venetians in
_villeggiatura_ whom Longhi shows us in town (see 1100 and 1101). In
1286 we see some "picturesque" farm-buildings on one side of a stream,
with a "picturesque" cow-herd asleep; whilst on the other side is a
party of gay ladies--dressed in crinolines and bows, and devoid of
hats, shawls, or wraps--flirting with _beaux_. The companion picture
(1297) is conceived in the same style; but the ladies are here fishing,
though, to judge from the amateurishness of their proceeding, they are
not likely to catch fish.