Giovanni Battista Piranesi
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| - | '''Giovanni Battista''' (also '''Giambattista''') '''Piranesi''' ([[4 October]] [[1729]] - [[9 November]] [[1778]]) was an Italian [[artist]] famous for his [[etching]]s of [[Rome]] and of [[fictitious]] and atmospheric "prisons" (''Carceri d'Invenzione'').{{GFDL}} | + | '''Giovanni Battista''' (also '''Giambattista''') '''Piranesi''' ([[4 October]] [[1729]] - [[9 November]] [[1778]]) was an Italian [[artist]] famous for his [[etching]]s of [[Rome]] and of [[fictitious]] and atmospheric "prisons" (''Carceri d'Invenzione''). |
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| ==The ''Vedute''== | ==The ''Vedute''== | ||
| The [[ruin|remains]] of Rome kindled Piranesi's enthusiasm. He was able to faithfully imitate the actual remains of a fabric; his invention in catching the [[Roman architecture|design of the original architect]] provided the missing parts; his masterful skill at engraving introduced groups of vases, altars, tombs that were absent in reality; and his broad and scientific distribution of light and shade completed the picture, creating a striking effect from the whole view. Some of his later work was completed by his children and several pupils. | The [[ruin|remains]] of Rome kindled Piranesi's enthusiasm. He was able to faithfully imitate the actual remains of a fabric; his invention in catching the [[Roman architecture|design of the original architect]] provided the missing parts; his masterful skill at engraving introduced groups of vases, altars, tombs that were absent in reality; and his broad and scientific distribution of light and shade completed the picture, creating a striking effect from the whole view. Some of his later work was completed by his children and several pupils. | ||
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Giovanni Battista (also Giambattista) Piranesi (4 October 1729 - 9 November 1778) was an Italian artist famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric "prisons" (Carceri d'Invenzione).
The Vedute
The remains of Rome kindled Piranesi's enthusiasm. He was able to faithfully imitate the actual remains of a fabric; his invention in catching the design of the original architect provided the missing parts; his masterful skill at engraving introduced groups of vases, altars, tombs that were absent in reality; and his broad and scientific distribution of light and shade completed the picture, creating a striking effect from the whole view. Some of his later work was completed by his children and several pupils.
Piranesi's son and coadjutor, Francesco, collected and preserved his plates, in which the freer lines of the etching-needle largely supplemented the severity of burin work. Twenty nine folio volumes containing about 2000 prints appeared in Paris (1835 - 1837). The late Baroque works of Claude Lorrain, Salvatore Rosa, and others had featured romantic and fantastic depictions of ruins; in part as a memento mori or as a reminiscence of a golden age of construction. His reproductions of real and recreated Roman ruins were a strong influence on Neoclassicism.
The Prisons (Carceri)
The Prisons (Carceri d'invenzione or 'Imaginary Prisons'), is a series of 16 prints produced in first and second states that show enormous subterranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines.
These in turn influenced Romanticism and Surrealism. While the Vedutisti (or "view makers") such as Canaletto and Bellotto, more often reveled in the beauty of the sunlit place, in Piranesi this vision takes on a Kafkaesque, Escher-like distortion, seemingly erecting fantastic labyrinthian structures, epic in volume, but empty of purpose. They are cappricci -whimsical aggregates of monumental architecture and ruin.
The first state prints were published in 1745 and consisted of 14 etchings. The original prints were 16” x 21”. For the second publishing in 1761, all the etchings were reworked and numbered I - XVI (1-16). Numbers II and V were new etchings to the series. Numbers I through IX were all done in portrait format (taller than they are wide), while X to XVI were landscape (wider than they are high). The titles are:
- I - Title Plate
- II - The Man on the Rack
- III - The Round Tower
- IV - The Grand Piazza
- V - The Lion Bas-Reliefs
- VI - The Smoking Fire
- VII - The Drawbridge
- VIII - The Staircase with Trophies
- IX - The Giant Wheel
- X - Prisoners on a Projecting Platform
- XI - The Arch with a Shell Ornament
- XII - The Sawhorse
- XIII - The Well
- XIV - The Gothic Arch
- XV - The Pier with a Lamp
- XVI - The Pier with Chains
Thomas De Quincey in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1820) wrote the following: Template:Cquote
An in-depth analysis of Piranesi's "Carceri" was written by Marguerite Yourcenar in her Dark Brain of Piranesi (1979). Further discussion of Piranesi and the "Carceri" can be found in The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi by John Wilton-Ely (1978). The style of Piranesi was imitated by 20th-century forger Eric Hebborn.
