Thursday, April 6, 2017

Tiepolo - Father and Son

Giambattista Tiepolo
Maecenas presenting the Liberal Arts to Emperor Augustus
1743
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"Perhaps the most congenial and equable end for an artist is that of being transformed into a color, like Daphne into laurel: this is what happened to Tiepolo in Proust.  In the entire À la recherche du Temps Perdu, which teems with references to painting, there is never any mention of a work by Tiepolo.  But the artist's name rings out three times  and each time in relation to a different woman: Odette, the Duchess of Guermantes, and Albertine.  The three women about whom Marcel fantasized the most, the ones who made him suffer most (even when he took on the character of Swann)  the women who accompanied his life like a long, glittering tripartite wake."

Giambattista Tiepolo
Seated Man & Woman with Pitcher

ca. 1755
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

"For Proust, Tiepolo was first and foremost Odette's robes.  In the eyes of this very young and stubborn worshipper, none of the outfits with which Madame Swann appeared in society were remotely comparable to the "marvelous robe in crêpe de Chine or silk, old rose, cherry, Tiepolo pink, white, mauve, green, red, yellow, plain or patterned, with which Madame Swann had eaten breakfast and was about to take off."  Like a faithful fanatic, Marcel deplored the fact that she did not go out dressed that way  and remembered that then Odette "would laugh, to make fun of his ignorance or with pleasure for the compliment."  Perhaps between Odette and Marcel there would never more be a moment of such intimacy, protected by the color that stood out in her collection of robes: "Tiepolo pink."

Giambattista Tiepolo
Triumph of Manius Curius Dentatus
ca. 1730
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"With the Duchess of Guermantes, years later, another Tiepolesque epiphany was to occur.  This time it was public and illuminating, when the duchess presented herself with "her evening mantle, in a magnificent Tiepolo red."  And so the duchess could remain petrified in a tableau vivant where Marcel himself offered to serve as her ensign  and that one day would expand to include all the vast population of the Recherche: "Erect, isolated, with her husband and me at her side, the duchess was on the left hand side of the stairway, already wrapped in her mantle à la Tiepolo, a ruby-studded clasp around her neck, devoured by the eyes of women and men trying to guess the secret of her elegance and beauty."

Giambattista Tiepolo
Figures studying Carved Relief on Altar
ca. 1740-45
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Giambattista Tiepolo
Three Elders, Two Youths, and a Boy
ca. 1740-44
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

"Finally, there was the Tiepolo of Albertine, brought back to life  this time  in the lining of a robe, as if in some Buddhist metempsychosis, and once more permeated by the aura of the artist's birthplace, Venice, but no longer flaunted as an emblem of sovereignty.  Now it would live in semiclandestinity, concealed beneath the blue and gold of the Fortuny robe that Albertine loved.  As Marcel's gaze gradually penetrated that deep blue, the color "changed into malleable gold, those same transmutations that, ahead of the gondola moving forward, change the light blue of the Canal Grande into glittering metal," until the metamorphosis subsided in the "sleeves lined with a cherry pink so peculiarly Venetian as to be called Tiepolo pink." 

 from Tiepolo Pink by Roberto Calasso, translated by Alastair McEwen (Knopf, 2009)

Giandomenico Tiepolo
The Dressmaker
late 18th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giandomenico Tiepolo
The Quack Dentist
late 18th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giandomenico Tiepolo
Hercules and Antaeus
late 18th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giandomenico Tiepolo
God the Father carried by Angels
late 18th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giandomenico Tiepolo
Sketches of Three Heads
late 18th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giandomenico Tiepolo
Sketches for The Death of Hyacinth
late 18th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giandomenico Tiepolo
Massacre of the Innocents
late 18th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giandomenico Tiepolo
Holy Family on the Flight into Egypt with Angels
late 18th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Giandomenico Tiepolo
Centaur and Faun in Landscape
late 18th century
drawing
Morgan Library, New York