One of the most important precursors of Neoclassical and Romantic
architecture. Giovanni Battista Piranesi (l720-78) was more
influential as an etcher than an architect. Born in Venice, he
trained as an architect and moved to Rome in
1740. where he designed his only built work, the church of Santa
Maria del Priorato (1764—65). In his printed work, however, Piranesi
advocated Rome's position in the classical world. In Roman
Antiques (1756), he sought to interpret the entire Roman
civilization and its ethical and symbolic values. Piranesi
maintained that Roman art, with us splendour and loftiness,
surpassed Greek art, which the German art historian Johann
Winckelmann had identified as the ideal of beauty and perfection, a
thesis that he supported in his polemical work On the
Architecture and Magnificence of the Romans (1761). It was,
however, his Views of Ancient and Modern Rome, (published
from 1745), with its poetic images of Italian ruins and antiquities,
that was so effective in moulding the Romantic ideal of Rome abroad.
His series, Carcerid'invenzione, (c.1745). was a
subjective depiction of fantastic and imaginary prisons, and evoked
a nightmarish, hallucinatory world.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
born Oct. 4, 1720, Mestre, near Venice [Italy]
died Nov. 9, 1778, Rome, Papal States
also called Giambattista Piranesi Italian draftsman, printmaker,
architect, and art theorist. His large prints depicting the
buildings of classical and postclassical Rome and its vicinity
contributed considerably to Rome's fame and to the growth of
classical archaeology and to the Neoclassical movement in art.
At the age of 20 Piranesi went to Rome as a draftsman for the
Venetian ambassador. He studied with leading printmakers of the day
and settled permanently in Rome in 1745. It was during this period
that he developed his highly original etching technique, producing
rich textures and bold contrasts of light and shadow by means of
intricate, repeated bitings of the copperplate.
He created about 2,000 plates in his lifetime. The “Prisons” of
about 1745 are his finest early prints; they depict ancient Roman or
Baroque ruins converted into fantastic, visionary dungeons filled
with mysterious scaffolding and instruments of torture. Among his
best mature prints are the series Le Antichità romane (1756; “Roman
Antiquities”), the Vedute di Roma (“Views of Rome”; appearing as
single prints between 1748 and 1778), and the views of the Greek
temples at Paestum (1777–78). His unparalleled accuracy of
depiction, his personal expression of the structures' dramatic and
romantic grandeur, and his technical mastery made these prints some
of the most original and impressive representations of architecture
to be found in Western art.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi Self-Portrait Engraving
Various collections
Giovanni Battista Piranesi View of Campo Vaccino,
etching from Views of Rome
Giovanni Battista Piranesi View of the Arch of Constanthe and
the Colosseum,
etching from Views of Rome.
Gabinetto Nazionaie delle
Stampe, Rome
Giovanni Battista Piranesi The Well
Giovanni Battista Piranesi Carceri d'Invenzione 1749-50
Engraving
Various collections
Giovanni Battista Piranesi The Prisons (plate VII) c. 1760
Etching, 545 x 415 mm
Various collections
Giovanni Battista Piranesi Prisoners on a Projecting Platform 1749-60
Etching and engraving (first state of two)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Giovanni Battista Piranesi The Prisons (plate IV) c. 1760
Etching, 54,5 x 41,5 cm
Various collections
Giovanni Battista Piranesi The Trevi Fountain in Rome 1773
Copper engraving
Private collection
Giovanni Battista Piranesi Antichita Romane
Giovanni Battista Piranesi II Campo Mazio dell'Antica Rome
Giovanni Battista Piranesi Veduta del piedestallo
Giovanni Battista Piranesi Vedute di Roma
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