+A.M.D.G.+
Domenico Tiepolo at the Frick Collection
8 December 2006 at 12.22
Venetian painter, draftsman and colorist Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804) — son, pupil and chief assistant to the famous Giambattista Tiepolo (1696â??1770), considered by many to be the last great Venetian painter — did not live in his father’s shadow. From the beginning, he struggled to cultivate an artistic identity all his own. A gifted genre painter, Tiepolo the Younger stamped traditional religious scenes with his “solidly quotidian vision.” By 1783, he had worked his way to become the esteemed president of the Venetian Academy, but gradually retired to his villa on the outskirts of Venice, where he worked simply to please himself. His painted decorations for his house are among his most personal and brilliant works. It was, however, his large finished drawings produced during his final years that established his reputation as a major artist. They belong to three long series â?? the adventures of the commedia dellâ??arte character Punchinello; scenes of everyday life in the Veneto; and scenes from the New Testament.
Now on display at the Frick gallery, in NYC, guest curator Dr. Adelheid M. Gealt assembles 60 examples from Domenico Tiepolo’s ‘New Testament’ cycle of drawings. Completed in ink and wash, Tiepolo’s jittery outlines (in marked contradistinction to the clean, fluid brushstrokes that characterized the work of his father) serve to add a feeling of tension or movement to the scene and work to make this series his most original accomplishment.
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