Description
Book Synopsis''Tiepolo: the last breath of happiness in Europe''
The eighteenth-century Venetian painter Giambattista Tiepolo spent his life creating frescoes that are among the glories of Western art, yet he remains shrouded in mystery. Who was he? And what was the significance of the dark, bizarre etchings depicting sacrifice and magic, which he created alongside his heavenly works? Roberto Calasso explores Tiepolo as the last artist of the ancien régime and at the same time the first example of the painter of modern life evoked by Baudelaire. He was the incarnation of that peculiar Italian virtue sprezzatura: the art of not seeming artful.
Translated by Alastair McEwen
''A brilliant, eccentric, provocative . . . and thoroughly splendid celebration of a great painter'' John Banville, The New Republic
''Calasso is a myth-maker ... a book that treats paintings as a kind of sorcery'' Peter Conrad, Observer
Trade ReviewCalasso has written a brilliant, eccentric, provocative, annoying, and thoroughly splendid celebration of a great painter. * The New Republic *
As one has come to expect of this polyglot and polymathic author, the range of references that inform his viewings is broad, deep and effortless * The Art Newspaper *
The next best thing to visiting Europe and seeing the painter's work . . . Calasso is one of the most demanding and intoxicating critics writing today. * Los Angeles Times *
