Piazzetta, Giambattista

PIAZZETTA, GIAMBATTISTA. - Painter, b. in Venice on 13 Feb. 1682, d. there on 28 Apr. 1754.

Decisive for his formation was his long stay in Bologna (between 1703 and 1711), during which he frequented 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 most typical characteristics of his art. To the Bolognese period is attributed a Hercules and Omphale (American private collection). Having returned to Venice, he remained there until his death, which overtook him in poverty, despite his indefatigable industry and the wide fame he had acquired among his contemporaries (in 1750 he had been named director of the Academy).

To the first Venetian period belong: the St. James Dragged to Martyrdom (ca. 1720: S. Stae), in which the agitation of the gestures finds correspondence in the violent chiaroscuro, on a reduced scale of brown tones, with a typical reddish coloration in the flesh; the Susanna (Uffizi) and, later, the Portrait of Giulia Lama (formerly in the Planiscig collection in Vienna). Between 1725 and 1727 P. executed the stupendous 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. had a notable influence. To 1732 are assigned other altarpieces: the Guardian Angel and Saints (S. Vitale, Venice) and the dramatic Ecstasy of St. Francis (Museum of Vicenza); to the same period the Judith (Acc. di S. Luca in Rome), Shepherds (Metropolitan of New York), The Standard-Bearer (Gallery of Dresden), the 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 lightens the tints and varies the colors, while still maintaining the chiaroscuro solidity of the figures (altarpiece with Three Saints [church of the Gesuati in Venice, ca. 1739]). This change of taste is favorable to the realization of subjects no longer dramatic but pathetic, inspired by episodes of 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 perhaps executed in 1742. In 1744, with the Decollation of the Baptist (Museum of the Santo in Padua), the plastic-compositional problems again prevail, realized with colors once more dark and with a violent chiaroscuro luminism. To this moment belong the Supper at Emmaus (Museum of Cleveland) and the Judith (Scuola del Carmine in Venice: variant in the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome). Signs of weariness appear in the contentism of numerous works of this period: St. Gaetano (Pinacoteca dei Concordi in Rovigo, where there are also two good portraits by P.), Madonna and Saints (Meduno, Udine), Madonna and St. Philip (S. Andrea in Cortona, 1744), Adoration of the Shepherds (cathedral of Würzburg, 1745), the Death of Darius (Palazzo Pisani Moretta) and the Mucius Scaevola (Palazzo Barbaro in Venice), in which the chiaroscuro unity of color is lost in the complexity of the compositions. In the last years the collaboration of the numerous disciples and followers becomes ever more perceptible (G. Angeli, Maggiotto, Cappella, Chiozzotto, G. Lama, etc.), whose abundant and often monotonous production has been sifted from that of the master essentially through the work of Pallucchini. Fundamental for the knowledge of P. are the drawings, true finished works and not simple studies, of which notable groups remain at the Academy and at the Museo Correr in Venice, in the Alverà and Brass collections, there, in the Museum of Cleveland, etc.

Nolfo di Carpegna