Product Description

The greatest painter of eighteenth-century Italy, Giambattista Tiepolo was both a master of the vivid colors, palpable movement, and dramatic, emotional scenes that characterize baroque art, and an expert in the later rococo style, which ushered in a lighter palette and looser brushwork. In Tiepolo: The Complete Paintings, Filippo Pedrocco provides a comprehensive examination of the paintings produced by this remarkable artist. Though Tiepolo began his career in his native city of Venice, his artistic prowess quickly brought him into contact with some of Europe's most influential figures. Kings and queens, princes and patriarchs commissioned him to decorate the walls and ceilings of their palaces in Venice, Milan, and Würzburg with grand canvases and frescoes. Monks, nuns, and even archbishops requested religious paintings for their churches and cathedrals in Bergamo, Vicenza, and Nymphenburg. The patronage of the rich and powerful brought Tiepolo fame and a string of masterpieces to serve as his legacy. Included in this stunning volume are all of the artist's paintings, each illustrated and expertly discussed by the author, a specialist in Venetian painting. Experience both the large-scale decorative frescoes, many of which are still in situ and therefore not widely accessible to the general audience, and the smaller, yet equally moving altarpieces, such as the Martyrdom of Saint Agatha, executed for the famous pilgrimage church of Saint Anthony in Padua. Through Tiepolo's masterful art the lavish opulence of eighteenth-century Italy is vividly brought to life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #374056 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-20
• Released on: 2002-12-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780847824762
• Condition: USED - LIKE NEW
• Notes:
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About the Author
Filippo Pedrocco is an expert on Venetian painting. The author of many books and articles, including Rizzoli's Giorgione (1999) and Venetian Views (2002), he is the director of the Museo del Settecento Veneziano in Ca'Rezzonico in Venice.

Customer Reviews

3 Stars for the Reproductions
The magnificent reproductions are the only reason to buy this tremendously oversized coffee-table book. But keep a pulley-system on hand: it weighs two tons. This book is the great-grandchild of what were once known, somewhat fetishistically, as folios, lavishly produced books of reproductions too large to be accomodated vertically on library shelves and therefore shelved horizontally, often in locked cages, away from rapacious hands. Folios were brought out ceremoniously from their cages by special request, by suspicious white-gloved librarians and set up on wooden or foam stands. The ritual exercise heightened the sensation of being in the presence of something grand -- it reproduced the work of art itself, as well as the power of the sublime as experienced in the presence of the original work of art. Pedrocco's book achieves a similar effect. The text is negligible and unimaginative, but then again, who really goes to an exhibition to read the wall-texts? Lorried, pullied, or displayed on a roving stand, this is a major blockbuster on wheels.