Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

:Tiepolo redirects here. You may be looking for either son, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, or Lorenzo Baldissera Tiepolo.

Works

Tiepolo was arguably the last of the great Venetian painters. As a draughtsman, colourist, and etcher, his works are magnificent in force, brilliance, and skill. He was also the first master of the Grand Manner. His work shows a masterful command of populated historical set-pieces, enveloped in a regal luminosity, and dressed in pompous arrays. He also brought art the oil sketch as an art form in itself.

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He is principally known for his fresco work, particularly of ceilings. These attempted to open the closed space to the sky, with a view from below of vast compositions that merged with the delicate ornamentation of the Rococo architecture and sculpture. The earliest example of this is perhaps his canvases in the Ca' Dolfin, which allowed Tiepolo to introduce exuberant costumes, classical sculpture, and action that appears to spill from the frames into the room. Originally set into recesses, they were surrounded with frescoed frames.

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His style is a distinct move from the Baroque, where dark, closed spaces illuminated with high contrast were popular; Tiepolo's work is typified with a daylight that illuminates the scene far more gently with a confident, sunny palette. This change can be actively viewed in the progression from his earlier works, which resembled more the former, dark and contrasting, to his later more famous works, in the style of the latter.

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The composition of his work is influenced directly by the Baroque. Almost hundreds of figures take place in his canvas space, something that had been tended towards in the 17th century, but he again develops from earlier artists.

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His use of perspective is especially notable, moving from the use of it in Baroque art as painters gained confidence with it, and noticeable in his ceiling frescos as a central theme. With these, such as those in Palazzo Labia, Venice, he collaborated with an expert in perspective, Girolamo Mengozzi Colonna. The fact that Colonna also designed sets for opera highlights the increasing tendency towards composition as a staged fiction.

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His most famous frescos, indeed his works at the pinnacle of his artistic maturity, are those at Würzburg. His Allegory of the Planets and Continents depicts Apollo, embarking on his daily course; deities around him symbolize the planets; allegorical figures (on the cornice) represent the four continents, notably including America.

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List of Works

• The Institution of the Rosary (1737-9).
• Ceiling frescos in the palace of the Archbishop at Würzburg (1750-53)
• The decorating the palace of Charles III of Spain in Madrid (1761-70).