Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's overflowing art united the splendour of the late Baroque and the intoxication of the blossoming Rococo. The Venetian painter, sometimes also referred to as Giambattista Tiepolo, staged his voluptuous ceiling paintings with motifs from mythology, religion, history and opera as both the swan song and climax of an artistically glamorous and light-flooded era on the threshold of classicism.
(...) Continue readingGiovanni Battista Tiepolo - lessons with Gregorio Lazzarini; meteoric rise in Venice
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was born in Venice on 5 March 1696. His father Domenico, a self-employed ship owner, died just a few months later, but left behind a fortune sufficient enough that the family of seven did not have to suffer any hardship. Little Giovanni's early recognisable artistic talent led him to take painting lessons from Gregorio Lazzarini, one of the leading Venetian masters of his time. However, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo developed his personal, slightly melancholic style with a pronounced sense of drama primarily under the influence of his contemporary role models Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Sebastiano Ricci and Federico Bencovich. A look at history recognizes his contact with the works of Titian, Tintoretto and above all Paolo Veronese, whose influence on Tiepolo's work can hardly be overlooked. He quickly made a name for himself as a highly talented painter, becoming a master at the age of 21, acquiring a position as the Doge's artistic advisor, and marrying Cecilia Guardi, the sister of the famous Venetian painters Giovanni Antonio Guardi and Francesco Guardi.
The Italian's main artistic work was created in Germany
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo worked for five years in the Palazzo Labia in his hometown of Venice before he followed the call of Prince-Bishop Karl Philipp von Greifenclau to Würzburg in 1750 - together with his sons Giovanni Domenico and Lorenzo, who had followed in their famous father's footsteps as painters. Alongside Titian, Tiepolo was the only world-class Italian artist who also worked in Germany. His works in the Würzburg Residence built by Balthasar Neumann, which include a magnificent depiction of the wedding of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his second wife Beatrix of Burgundy, are recognised in art history as Tiepolo's undisputed masterpiece. The frescoes, rich in light and effects, not only bear witness to the exuberant imagination of their creator, but also represent the unrivalled pinnacle of European ceiling painting. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was the first president of the Accademia di belle arti di Venezia, which he founded in the 1750s together with his famous fellow painter Giambattista Pittoni.
Last triumphs and late signs of fatigue in Madrid
In 1762, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo travelled to Madrid with his sons at the invitation of Emperor Charles III to design the complete artistic decoration for the royal palace. This commission is regarded as the artistic highlight of the Italian's later work and at the same time the last great triumph in his illustrious career, who by that point was struggling with signs of fatigue in the face of growing competition. In the last years of his life, Tiepolo had to cope with an increasing loss of importance: his opulent paintings no longer met the taste of the court in Madrid, which increasingly favoured the classicist style of Tiepolo's young rival Anton Raphael Mengs. The rejection of his seven altarpieces for the church in Aranjuez was a severe humiliation; however, the subsequent attempt to return to Italy failed due to the ageing Venetian's poor health.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo died in Madrid on 27 March 1770. Despite the painful experiences of his later years, his reputation as one of the most important European painters of the 18th century continues to this day - an asteroid was named after him in 2003.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo - Works that have already been sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz:
