Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo , 1696-1770, Italian painter, b. Venice. He was the most important Venetian painter and decorator of the 18th cent. His frescoes in the Labia Palace and the doge's palace won him international fame. In 1750, Tiepolo was summoned to Würzburg, where he decorated the palace of the archbishop with frescoes illustrating the life of Emperor Frederick I and with altarpieces depicting the Ascension of the Virgin and Fall of the Angels. In 1762 he went to Madrid, where he passed the remainder of his life and decorated the royal palace with frescoes representing Spain and Her Provinces and the Apotheosis of Spain. In oil he was also prolific. Tiepolo's works are in many European and American galleries. Among them are The Crucifixion (City Art Mus., St. Louis); The Apotheosis of Aeneas (Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston); and two allegorical pictures (Metropolitan Mus.). The National Gallery, Washington, D.C., has several pictures. Lightness and clarity of color, superb draftsmanship, and scintillating brushwork mark his style. Particularly in his fresco decorations, in which he sent foreshortened deities floating on clouds through sunny skies, his mastery and audacity are amazing. It is an art derived from Veronese, but it is less concerned with solid structure and shows more surface brilliance. Two of Tiepolo's sons, Giandomenico and Lorenzo, continued his tradition. Tiepolo was famous also as a draftsman and etcher. Technically, Goya learned much from him.

Bibliography: See catalog of works (ed. by G. Knox, 1960); studies by A. Morassi (1955), P. Ancona (1956), V. Crivellaro (1962), and A. Rizzi (1972).

Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista (1696–1770) Italian painter. His rococo pictures are full of action, using light, sunny colours, with figures and objects seen in a deep, theatrical perspective. The peak of his career came in the 1750s, when he decorated the Kaisersaal and the grand staircase of the Prince Archbishop's Palace, Würzburg.

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk; http://www.nga.gov