Giovanni Battista Tiepolo: The Complete Story
Look up inside the grand staircase of the Residenz in Wurzburg and the ceiling seems to open onto the sky itself, with gods, continents and clouds floating overhead. It is the largest fresco ever painted, and the hand behind it belonged to Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, the last great master of the Venetian grand manner.
He was the supreme decorator of the eighteenth century, a painter of light, air and dizzying ceilings who gave the dying age of fresco one final, glorious blaze.
The master of the ceiling
Tiepolo specialised in vast decorative schemes for palaces and churches, full of pale blue skies, sunlit clouds and figures that seem to soar above the viewer.
His command of fresco painting was total, and he often combined it with quadratura, painted architecture that makes a flat ceiling dissolve into open space.
The largest fresco in the world
His most famous work is the ceiling above the staircase of the Wurzburg Residenz in Germany, painted in the early 1750s. It shows the four continents as grand allegories under a glowing sky and is the largest fresco ever made.
He painted it during a long stay in Germany, treating an entire ceiling as a single, breathtaking vision of the world.
The family workshop
Tiepolo ran a true family operation. His sons, especially Giandomenico, worked alongside him and helped carry out his huge commissions across Europe.
Giandomenico became a fine artist in his own right, with a sharper, more ironic eye, and carried the family name on after his father.
The painter of prints
Beyond the great ceilings, Tiepolo made strange and haunting etchings, series known as the Capricci and the Scherzi, full of magicians, owls and bones.
He also made small oil sketches, called modelli, to show patrons his ideas, and these quick, brilliant studies are prized today almost as much as the finished walls.
Tiepolo, briefly answered
What is he known for?
Grand decorative ceilings, above all the world largest fresco at Wurzburg.
Where did he work?
Venice, Germany and finally Madrid, for the Spanish court.
Did his family paint too?
Yes, his son Giandomenico was a notable artist who worked with him.
When did he die?
In 1770, in Madrid.
Why his skies still soar
Tiepolo was the last to make the painted ceiling feel like a window onto heaven. Fashions turned to cooler, sterner taste almost as soon as he died, so he stands as the final, dazzling sunset of a four hundred year tradition.
He ended his career in Madrid, painting ceilings for the king of Spain, only to be pushed aside there by the rising taste for the colder Neoclassical style of his rival Mengs. Within a generation his airy gods looked old fashioned, which is part of why his name faded before the modern eye learned to love his lightness again. His airy, theatrical manner ran in the family for two generations and reached across Europe, from the churches of Venice to palaces in Germany and Spain, making him the most sought after decorator of his century. Patrons competed for his time, and a single ceiling could take him years and a team of assistants to complete. His vast oil sketches and ceiling designs were collected across the continent, and museums today prize the quick modelli almost as highly as the finished walls themselves.