The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Wilton-Ely, John

Published by Thames & Hudson, London,, 1978

About this Item

Hardcover; quarto; tan cloth boards with gilt spine titling and upper board publisher's insignia, map endpapers; 304pp., 391 monochrome illustrations. Minor wear only; a few scattered spots on title page. Black and white illustrated dustwrapper, unclipped, clean and bright. Fine in like dustwrapper. Postage quoted is for a standard format octavo book. Final charges may vary depending on size and weight. A mounting interest in Piranesi over the past two decades, represented by a series of exhibitions in Europe and North America, testifies to his powerful appeal for our time. Considerable study has already been devoted to his brilliance as a graphic artist, his transformation of the European vision of antiquity, and his themes of fantasy. But though these aspects are essential for an appreciation of Piranesi's visual significance, they have tended to obscure others equally important for a full understanding of his unique achievement; a reappraisal of this complex and versatile personality was due, and this volume provides it. John Wilton-Ely lectures on the History of Art at the University of Nottingham and is one of the foremost authorities on Piranesi in the world. His book covers every aspect of Piranesi's life and work, emphasising especially his importance as a pioneer of Roman archaeology, the high quality of his technical illustrations, and his role as Roman champion in the great Graeco-Roman debate of the 1760s. He highlights the Enlightenment world of the artist's ideas, fundamentally bound up with the birth of Neo-Classicism and the search for an appropriately modern form of expression; and he shows the practical and influential form taken by these ideas in Piranesi's architectural projects, his designs for furniture and decorative schemes and his imaginative restoration of antiquities. The common thread linking these disparate themes, as the author ably demonstrates, was the desire to reinterpret Classical antiquity, through the imagination, to suit contemporary needs. The illustrations, both details and full plates, include preparatory drawings and examples from all the published collections of engravings, as well as photographs of Piranesi's architecture. His two major series of etchings, the Vedute di Roma (137 plates) and the Carceri (16 plates) are reproduced complete, each plate on a full page. Seller Inventory # 32007

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista ...

Publisher: Thames & Hudson, London,

Publication Date: 1978