1192, 1193. SKETCHES FOR ALTAR-PIECES
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Venetian: 1692-1769).
Tiepolo, one of the leaders in the revival of Venetian art (see under 1100), was the Paul Veronese of the eighteenth century. "Living," says Sir F. Burton, "in the era of periwig in art as a dress, he was at a sore disadvantage as compared with his great prototype of the sixteenth century; but he steered a pretty clear course between vapid classicality and buckram fashion. Gifted with a brilliant fancy, and master of all the resources of his art, Tiepolo formed a style which, whatever its shortcomings, is splendidly decorative. In his easel pictures, he is at his very best. Here he was not tempted by vast surfaces into that looseness of composition and hastiness of execution that often lessen the value of his frescoes; here, therefore, he could indulge his feeling for compact architectonic arrangement, display force of harmonious colour, and exercise a brilliant method of handling akin to that of Paul Veronese." Tiepolo worked for most of his life at Venice; but went also to execute commissions at Milan, Wurzburg (where his paintings in the Archbishop's Palace may still be seen), and Madrid, in which latter city he died. Of his frescoes at Venice the finest are those of "Antony and Cleopatra" in the Palazzo Labia. Copies of these are in the Arundel Society's Collection.
"Touched in with all the brilliant, flashing, dexterous bravura of the last of the rear-guard of the Venetians. The pictorial art of Venice finished with Tiepolo, and it seemed as if he was resolved that it should not die ignominiously, for in spirit and gaiety he was little inferior to Veronese himself. He had not the stronger qualities of his model; Veronese's grasp of character, his air of nobility, his profound and imaginative harmonies of colour, are wanting in the eighteenth century painter" (Times, December 22, 1885).