Ciardi's paintings are well made and pleasant to view. His subject matter and treatment of it -- especially the lagoon scenes -- are repetitious. But that's the groove most commercially successful artists follow: first create a viable visual "brand" and then use it to gain further sales and bread on the family table.
The lagoon is obviously flat, and so it the nearby countryside, so I find it interesting seeing how Ciardi dealt with the placement of the horizon line in his images. A modern tourist using a camera or cell phone tends to show mostly sky when photographing that sort of setting. Unless clouds and other sky features are the real subject matter, the wise photographer or artist will try to include as much foreground as possible while maintaining an attractive composition.
The tourist zone of Venice is visible in the distance, while the subject is boats with large, triangular, orange sails.
More of a study or perhaps a technique experiment -- but he did sign this.
More orange sails.
Here we are, closer to the Campanile, and the brushwork is "painterly" again.
Still more orange sails, but the brushwork is more polished. It's possible, even likely, that the brushwork variations are related to when these images were painted. Unfortunately, their dates are not available.
Skillful contrasting of simple and complicated areas.
Ciardi seemingly seldom included close-up views of people, such as we find here.
Finally, a signed sketch of a mountain scene.
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