![]() ![]() ![]() Perhaps they are best understood as the prospectus of a young man anxious to display his virtuosity, for it is only with the radical revisions carried out twelve years later for the Second Edition that we find any overt references to torture and punishment. The rather theatrical, two-dimensional treatment of the space is certainly reminiscent of a stage backdrop, complete with trompe-l'oeil effects and dramatic lighting. Giovanni Battista Piranesi was not only and architect nor an artist or stage designer, he was also fond of printmaking, seems. ![]() They show the influence both of his early training in stage design with the Bibiena family in Bologna, and his fascination with architecture, encouraged no doubt by his father's being a stone-mason. Unlike the other thousand or so etchings he produced over forty years, which essentially set out to record the magnificence of Rome's imperial past and argue for the superiority of Roman culture over that of the Greeks, Piranesi refused to expand upon what these strange, haunting interiors were meant to signify. The 1761 series is a monument in the history of art and includes some of the most well-known etchings in the world. The Carceri stands apart from the main body of Piranesi's work for several reasons, most important of which is the mystery surrounding the actual purpose of the series. Piranesi’s Prisons: Legacy and Context showcases Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s large-scale architectural etchings, Carceri d’Invenzione or Prisons of Invention, from the Chrysler’s collection. GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (1720-1778) Staircase with Trophies, Plate VIII from: Carceri d'Invenzione etching, circa 1749-50, watermark Fleur-de-Lys in single Circle, a fine, bright and luminous, early impression of the first state (of five), First Edition, first or second Issue, before signature and number, with wide margins, a hard horizontal central crease mainly visible in the margins. ![]()
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