Rebuilding Warsaw with the Help of an 18th Century Landscape Artist

During World War II, the Warsaw Uprising saw the Polish resistance kill 20,000 Nazi soldiers. Although the resistance and civilians suffered even higher losses, the Nazis retaliated by reducing the city's historic center to rubble.

After the war, some considered moving the Polish capital elsewhere instead of rebuilding. But Varsovians wanted their city back, and rebuilt those buildings, using much of the rubble reclaimed from the destruction. They used the art of Italian landscape artist Bernardo Bellotto as a guide. Bellotto had been the court painter of Poland's King Stanisław August Poniatowski for 16 years beginning in 1768. He spent 16 years painting the city of Warsaw from all angles. Bellato's 22 street scenes documented 18th-century Warsaw survived the war and helped make downtown Warsaw what it is today -a UNESCO Heritage site.

The new Warsaw isn't exactly as it was before due to several factors, including the influence of the Soviet Union. But without Bellotto's paintings from two centuries earlier, it might not be there at all. Read how the city's documentation in art became crucial for its reconstruction at the Guardian. -via Messy Nessy Chic ​

(Image credit: Bernardo Bellotto)