The eighteenth-century Venetian painter Giambattista Tiepolo spent his life creating frescoes that are among the glories of Western art, yet he remains shrouded in mystery. Who was he? And what was the significance of the dark, bizarre etchings depicting sacrifice and magic, which he created alongside his heavenly works? Roberto Calasso explores Tiepolo as the last artist of the ancien regime and at the same time the first example of the “painter of modern life” evoked by Baudelaire. He was the incarnation of that peculiar Italian virtue sprezzatura: the art of not seeming artful.

Translated by Alastair McEwen

Format: Paperback
Published: UK, 2020
Publisher: Penguin
Pages: 304
Language: English
ISBN 13: 9780241399422
ISBN 10: 0241399424