Giambattista Tiepolo 1696-1770

Product Description This publication is issued in conjunction with the exhibition Giambattista Tiepolo, 1696–1770, presented on the three-hundredth anniversary of the artist's birth. It is organized by the Soprintenza ai Beni Artistici e Storia di Venezia, The Assessorato all Cultura del Comune di Venezia, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, not as a chronological survey but as a demonstration of Tiepolo's achievement and the enormous variety within his oeuvre. Following a section devoted to his formation and early career, the contours of which have assumed greater clarity through research accumulated during the last two decades, there are sections treating various aspects of his production. For those who know Tiepolo only as a decorative artist―genial magician who casts an enchanted and enchanting spell with his poetic tales culled from Ariosto and Tasso―the seriousness of his religious painting will come as a revelation. Not since Titian and Tintoretto had Venice seen a talent for transforming the laconic stories of the Bible and of the saints into a dramatic narrative. The richness and diversity of Tiepolo's imagination have long seemed to many the most modern aspect of his genius, and the last section of this exhibition has been conceived as a celebration of these traits. [This book was originally published in 1996 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.] From the Back Cover Giambattista Tiepolo was the greatest artist of eighteenth-century Venice and, excepting only Goya and David, of eighteenth-century Europe. His frescoes in the palaces, churches, and villas of Venice and the Veneto and in the palaces of the prince-bishop of Wurzburg and the king of Spain are supreme accomplishments in the history of European art. About the Author Keith Christiansen is Jayne Wrightsman Curator of Italian Painting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Posner is Ailsa Mellon Bruce Professor of Fine Arts and Deputy Director, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Andrea Bayer is Curator in the Department of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Filippo Pedrocco, the head of the Museo del Settecento Veneziano di Ca'Rezzonico, is an expert on Venetian art. He has collaborated on many important museum exhibitions, including "The Glory of Venice," which traveled to London and Washington, D.C. in 1994, and "Giambattista Tiepolo 1696-1996," which traveled to Venice and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1996. Simonetta Nava is an art historian whose work has included restoring frescoes. She has worked on cultural and educational television programs in Italy.