Giambattista Tiepolo

de Keith Christiansen

This volume, which accompanies the tricentenary exhibition of Tiepolo's work held at the Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico in Venice and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, explores the various aspects of Tiepolo's artistic production. In essays and in entries on every work shown, eight American and European authorities illuminate his formation (still poorly understood); his mastery of mythological and poetic subjects; his deeply moving religious pictures; his rare excursions into portraiture and studies of ideal heads; and the process by which he proceeded from initial ideas - realized in dazzling small-scale oil sketches - to large canvases and frescoes. Written for the scholar and general reader alike, these texts are lavishly supported by illustrations of Tiepolo's works and those of his predecessors and contemporaries. A documented chronology of Tiepolo's life and art, detailed provenances, references, and a bibliography are provided.