| GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (Mogliano Veneto 1720 - Rome 1778) VEDUTA DEL TEMPIO DELLA SIBILLA IN TIVOLI (The Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli) 1761 Etching, from 'Vedute di Roma'. Hind 61. A fine impression of Hind's first state of five, with margins, in very good condition. Watermark: Hind 3. To the platemark 424 x 635 mm, the entire sheet measuring 465 x 659 mm. The son of a stonemason, Giovanni Battista Piranesi was educated as an architect in Venice under his maternal uncle Matteo Lucchesi. In 1740 Piranesi left Venice for Rome, there he studied under Giuseppe Vasi, who introduced him to the art of etching and engraving. From 1743 to 1747 Piranesi sojourned mainly in Venice. He then returned to Rome, where he opened a workshop in Via del Corso. Piranesi was a rapid and facile worker and his output in etched plates was enormous: large prints, full of detail, vigour, and brilliancy. The genre of view painting, on which Piranesi based his work, gave him the means to elaborate and develop an original manner of seeing and documenting the past. While he achieved a work of magnitude in pictorial records of Roman monuments of antiquity and of the Renaissance, and gave immense archæological, antiquarian, and topographical value to this work, the artistic quality always predominates. As a rule Piranesi drew directly on copper, and hence his work is bold, free, and spirited to a marked degree. His highly original etching technique produces rich textures and bold contrasts of light and shadow by means of intricate, repeated bitings of the copperplate. 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. |
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