Justice and Law were still firmly anchored to Catholic dogma in the 1700's, and the penitentiaries were not concerned with rehabilitating criminals instead they smaller versions of purgatory and hell. He is likely most famous for his 'Carceri d'invenzione' (see below), a sixteen print group depicting imaginary, sometimes slightly fantastic prisons. The Renaissance and Baroque masters were gone, and Italy would never again be the center of European Art. Strangely, it was during this period that Paris replaced Rome as the cultural capital of Western civilization. In the context of art history, the Rococo period was defined by the ugly, sickly sweet style of painters like Watteau, Fragonard and Boucher a decadent, soulless approach that is inextricably linked to the luxurious excesses of the doomed French monarchy. All that damn fine French and American revolting signalled the end of the age. Voltaire said some funny-clever shit, but Newton had already made everyone else feel stupid in the 17th. Others will take exception to that sweeping dismissal and temporal bigotry, and to be fair, there was probably some cool stuff happening under all the make-up, powdered wigs and velvet. Speaking personally, between the late Baroque painters like Rembrandt or Rubens or Rosa, and the Neo-classicism/Romanticism of the early 19th century ushered in by Goya, not much worth mentioning was being created in Europe. Piranesi is one of the most renowned artists to make engraving/etching his chosen medium, and this comprehensive slip-cased set shows off both the genius of Piranesi and the stunning possibilities of a now dying, if not dead, art-form. This double-volume hardcover set, collecting 'The Complete Etchings' of the 18th century artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi, is another beautiful, remarkably affordable release from Taschen.
These half-collapsed bridges and aqueducts and temples to forgotten gods still had a tragic beauty and monumental significance that Piranesi captured with an objective eye the meticulous technical skill is indicative of a patience that seems to contradict his reputation for Salvator Rosa-like ‘savagery’… an artist to whom Piranesi was apparently compared, for some fucked-up 18th Century reasoning lost to the ages. or until the keystone finally dropped from a 2000-year-old arch and completely ruined the ruins. The Romans of the Enlightenment lived and worked amongst these moss and vine covered relics of the classical age, ignoring them until they disassembled them, recycling the raw materials and making space. His meticulous engravings capture a Rome that was haunted by its history every square foot of stone told the stories of a magnificent past and people, irrevocably lost to time and the whims of fortune. His reputation for dark fantasy has been exaggerated, as the material that inspired it makes up a pretty small percentage of his oeuvre, compared to the cityscapes. It's not remotely accurate, but who gives a shit about accuracy? Piranesi did, oddly enough, and conscientiously spent a large part of his life capturing on paper the crumbling remnants of Ancient Rome as they existed a couple centuries ago. Hell's Architect? It sounds cool, and it does conform with the artist's rep, and the fantastically sadistic prisons Dante might have found a way to work into his rhyming tour of the Inferno. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Hell's Architect
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