Word: tiepolo
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WITH SUCH a range of works, from Giotto through the Impressionists to Morris Louis, the exhibit could have spoken about the artists' use of light or of plastic form. El Greco's eerie lighting in View of Toledo compared to Tiepolo's ethereal scene of St. Thecla Praying or compared to Monet's Rouen Cathedral could have emphasized the different handlings of light. A trio of Sassetta (the be-beginnings of perspective), Cezanne his constructive view of nature), and Joseph Stella's Coney Island (an engineering of color) could have stated a development in the ordering of nature...
...value of what the heirs have kept should be immense. Not all the cream of the collection has gone to Florence; the family is merely down to its last half-dozen Titians, five or six Bellinis, and a pair of Tiepolo ceilings. Nobody knows what price the art may eventually fetch, but it seems certain that no group of paintings like it will be seen on the market again for years...
...viewer can not help but see the exhibition's statement as Knox and the Fogg staff intended, for they have provided the visual evidence to support their premises. Unfortunately the show's emphasis on Tiepolo's stylistic virtuosity and influence sacrifices the use of many master-pieces that would only be repetitious to the exhibit's assertions. Some of the Fogg's most interesting Tiepolos are in a supplementary exhibit on the drawing balcony of the museum (for instance the historiated initials and a portrait of Lorenzo Tiepolo...
This lack of emphasis on his masterpieces leaves insufficient evidence to answer the question: how great was Tiepolo? Is it his innovative style with pen and wash that makes him important? Is it his ethereal atmospheres or his vision of a grand and an heroic world that makes him significant? How unique is the viewer's alienation from Tiepolo's religious theatres? To answer these questions, one must consider Tiepolo's other works-his ceilings in Italy...
Indeed the Fogg has made a scholarly contribution to art history-recreating the draftsmanship and the atelier of Giambattista-but by contrasting the works of Degas with Tiepolo the Fogg could have contemporized the exhibit: Tiepolo's aloof world of the religious could have been viewed in comparison to Degas' off-stage world of the dancer. Degas' attempt to take the viewer backstage, to remove the dancer from her idealized position, would complement Tiepolo's pedestal art. A single color cannot evoke the vibrations that two juxtaposed complementary colors...