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This book offers an innovative approach to the altarpieces of Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770) by discussing them within the intellectual context of the first half of the eighteenth century. Tiepolo occupies a particular position in the history of art: firmly embedded in the eighteenth century, he is one of the last great painters of the classical tradition, and, at the same time, one of the precursors of modernity.
Why has Tiepolo's religious art often been misunderstood? How can the abbreviation and absence of key symbols in the images be explained and why is this rhetoric of absence so utterly modern? Deliberately concentrating on what is not painted, rather than what is in the picture, the book deals with Tiepolo's lacunism as an eighteenth-century phenomenon anticipating modernity. It discusses four different forms of rhetoric: iconic, narrative, silent, and visionary. Each discourse calibrates the images within their contemporary religious and philosophical context, which promote this type of rhetoric as highly innovative.
List of contents
Contents: Poetic Rhetoric: The «Discovery of the True Homer» - Dialogue: Iconicity - Narrative: Historia - Muta Poesis: The Chorus - Metalanguage: Visions.
About the author
Johanna Fassl was born in Munich, Germany, and holds a PhD with distinction in Art History from Columbia University. She received Mellon and Getty fellowships for her research on Tiepolo. Currently she is an assistant professor of art history at Franklin College Switzerland, in addition to being the director of Casa Muraro: Columbia University Study Center in Venice. She is now working on her second book project, dealing with the concept of vision in Enlightenment art, science, and philosophy.
