The Glory of Venice: Art in the Eighteenth Century - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300061854 ISBN 13: 9780300061857

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1994

Synopsis

Venice, home of Tiepolo, Canaletto, Piranesi, Piazzetta, and Guardi, was the most artistic city of eighteenth-century Italy. This beautiful book examines the whole range of the arts in Venice during this period, including paintings, pastels and gouaches, drawings and watercolors, prints, illustrated books and sculpture.

The book begins with an introduction by Andrew Robison and a general introduction to Venetian art by Michael Levey. Essays by other eminent authorities then discuss the international taste for Venetian art and major aspects of the art of the period. The essays are followed by a catalogue that discusses and reproduces many of the finest works of the time along with biographies and critical discussions of the artists. The selection of works emphasizes the beauty, quality, distinctiveness, variety, balance, and unity of Venetian art. It includes altarpieces by Tiepolo, Piazzetta, and others that demonstrate the importance of profoundly serious and grand religious art; it presents the finest examples of history paintings and allegories, views and landscapes, architectural fantasies, decorative paintings, and portraits; and it offers a large selection of particularly fine graphic art, for many of the greatest painters―including Marco Ricci, Piazzetta, Canaletto, and Tiepolo―also devoted themselves to printmaking, book illustration, and designs for stage sets and the decorative arts, and often found greater freedom for their fantasy in such works.

About this title

About the Author

Andrew Robison is senior curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Reviews

This beautiful book has served as the catalog of a survey exhibition held in London and Washington in 1994-95. The 16 authoritative essays by an international cast of museum and academic scholars highlight individual artists and general themes during the glorious artistic flowering that coincided with the decline and fall of the Venetian state. Although many major works could not be exhibited because of their size or architectural nature, the show and this resultant catalog are still wonderfully wide in reach, including paintings, pastels, drawings, illustrated books, and prints, as well as some furniture. A remarkably good survey of the period within the limits of a specific exhibition and the catalog format, the main essays succeed for the most part in reaching the educated general reader, while the apparatus is there for scholars. Not really groundbreaking, but excellent in what it does; highly recommended for both general and special collections.
Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300061854
• ISBN 13: 9780300061857
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528
• Editor: Martineau Jane, Robison Andrew