PIAZZETTA, GIAMBATTISTA. — Painter, born in Venice on 13 February 1682, died there on 28 April 1754.
Decisive for his formation was his lengthy sojourn in Bologna (between 1703 and 1711), during which he attended the workshop of G. M. Crespi and saw the works of the young Guercino, deriving from them a taste for problems of light and that formal solidity which would remain the most constant and characteristic features of his art. An Hercules and Omphale (American private collection) is attributed to the Bolognese period. On returning to Venice, he remained there until his death, which overtook him in poverty, despite his indefatigable productivity and the considerable fame he had acquired among his contemporaries (in 1750 he had been appointed director of the Academy).
The following belong to his first Venetian period: St. James dragged to martyrdom (ca. 1720; S. Stae), in which the agitation of the gestures finds its counterpart in the violent chiaroscuro, on a reduced scale of brown tones, with a characteristic reddish coloring in the flesh; Susanna (Uffizi) and, later, Portrait of Giulia Lama (formerly in the Planiscig collection in Vienna). Between 1725 and 1727 P. executed the splendid Madonna with St. Philip Neri (S. Maria della Fava) and the ceiling, on canvas, with the Glory of St. Dominic (SS. Giovanni e Paolo), resolving problems of light, perspective, and space that anticipate Tiepolo, on whom P. exerted considerable influence. Other altarpieces are assigned to 1732: the Guardian Angel and Saints (S. Vitale, Venice) and the dramatic Ecstasy of St. Francis (Museum of Vicenza); to the same period belong Judith (Acc. di S. Luca in Rome), Shepherds (Metropolitan Museum of New York), The Standard-Bearer (Dresden Gallery), and Portrait of a Young Sculptor (formerly in the Grassi collection in Florence).
In the mature period, which begins with The Assumption (1735), now in the Museum of Lille, the artist lightened his tones and varied his colors, while maintaining the chiaroscuro solidity of the figures (altarpiece with Three Saints [church of the Gesuati in Venice, ca. 1739]). This change in taste favored the execution of subjects that were no longer dramatic but pathetic, inspired by episodes from the Bible or by popular scenes: Rebecca at the Well (Brera Gallery in Milan), Fortune-Teller (Academy of Venice), Pastoral (Art Institute of Chicago), and Idyll on the Beach (von Schnitzler collection in Cologne), the latter two perhaps executed in 1742. In 1744, with the Beheading of St. John the Baptist (Museo del Santo in Padua), plastic and compositional problems again came to predominate, realized with once more somber colors and violent chiaroscuro lighting. The Supper at Emmaus (Cleveland Museum) and Judith (Scuola del Carmine in Venice; variant in the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome) belong to this phase. Signs of weariness appear in the content-driven character of numerous works from this period: St. Gaetano (Pinacoteca dei Concordi in Rovigo, which also contains two good portraits by P.), Madonna and Saints (Meduno, Udine), Madonna and St. Philip (S. Andrea in Cortona, 1744), Adoration of the Shepherds (Würzburg Cathedral, 1745), The Death of Darius (Palazzo Pisani Moretta), and Mucius Scaevola (Palazzo Barbaro in Venice), in which the chiaroscuro unity of the color is lost in the complexity of the compositions. In his final years, the collaboration of his numerous pupils and followers (G. Angeli, il Maggiotto, il Cappella, il Chiozzotto, G. Lama, etc.) became increasingly perceptible; their abundant and often monotonous production has been separated from that of the master chiefly through the work of Pallucchini. Fundamental for knowledge of P. are his drawings, true finished works rather than simple studies, notable groups of which remain at the Academy and the Museo Correr in Venice, in the Alverà and Brass collections there, in the Cleveland Museum, etc.